Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef accused the state of deliberately inviting Soviet immigrants to Israel to weaken the political power of the haredi Orthodox.
“It would be better if they cast off their kippah and Shabbat [observance] and show their true faces,” Rabbi Shlomo Amar said.
Adopting science in order to define who is a Jew and who is not is part and parcel of a rightward turn Israel has fostered under Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate is seizing power over the world’s Jewish population, and the move could have dire consequences.
It may be because the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate of Israel doesn’t want to acknowledge that women can be rabbis at all.
There is no basis in Jewish law for requiring an attendant at a ritual bath, but rabbis demand one anyway, raising privacy and spiritual concerns.
The designation is a badge of honor — but it’s also a cause of sadness, as the rabbinate will only cause Diaspora Jews to turn their backs on Israel.
Over the weekend, reports emerged of a “blacklist of rabbis” maintained by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.
The list of rabbis whom the Rabbinate doesn’t trust to confirm Jewish identities of immigrants includes Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox leaders.
As Israel’s cabinet rolls back years of advances in conversion reform, a court petition of one convert could be a landmark case that determines who is authorized to perform Orthodox conversions in Israel.