JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin reportedly has named a potential successor for his Modern Orthodox educational network Ohr Torah Stone. Riskin, 74, appointed Rabbi David Stav, founder of the Israel-based Tzohar Rabbinical Organization, as co-chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone educational network, The New York Jewish Week reported. Ohr Torah Stone serves about 3,000 students at 19…
David Stav has based his campaign to become Israel’s next Ashkenazi chief rabbi on a message of inclusion, friendliness and tolerance. But in an exclusive interview with JTA, he spoke harsh words against those who have attacked him in recent weeks. The attacks began two Saturday nights ago, when Rabbi Ovadia Yosef used his weekly…
The Rabbinical Council of America offered its support to Israeli chief rabbi candidate David Stav after he was harassed at a wedding and labeled “a wicked man” by Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. In its letter backing Stav, the head of the Tzohar organization in Israel for Modern Orthodox rabbis, the RCA wrote in…
Heading the agenda at the joint Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu faction’s weekly meeting was the election of Israel’s new chief rabbis, slated for next month (the election is carried out among a large group of rabbis and public representatives). Two private bills related to this issue will soon be submitted to the Knesset. The first attempts to…
That fight within the Jewish Home party over nominations for chief rabbi has more to it than meets the eye. True, it opens up a fault line within the religious Zionist movement, between the liberal wing that backs Rabbi David Stav and the more religiously conservative wing that backs Rabbi Yaakov Ariel. But it’s also…
Members of Habayit Hayehudi are split over who to support in the race for Chief Rabbinate, with party leader Naftali Bennett strongly in favor of Rabbi David Stav, a founder of the religious Zionist organization, Tzohar. On Sunday Bennett denied reports about “deals of one sort or another with Shas or other parties” concerning the…
To get married in Israel, Dima Motel had to bring his family photo album and two of his ancestors’ birth certificates to a rabbinical court. Then an investigator quizzed his mother in Yiddish. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate often asks Russian immigrants like Motel to prove that they’re Jewish, sometimes requiring documentary evidence that can be hard…
Israel’s Haredim may be on the cusp of losing even more of their power following their exclusion from the new government. If David Stav gets his way, they will no longer control the rabbinate. The self-styled iconoclast is standing in the election for Ashkenazi chief rabbi this summer, and already has the support of several…
