Nepotism, Greed, Power, and Politics: The Tragic Self-Inflicted Fate of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate (212)

Orthodox Conundrum

68 years ago, Rav Soloveitchik zt'l identified the timidity of Orthodox Jews as representing a failure to respond to the miracle of renewed Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Today, tragically, we seem to have the opposite problem. In 2024, Israel has a religious establishment which has completely lost its sense of shame, and is not only involved in nepotism alongside a lust for money and power, but barely even tries to hide it.

To put it bluntly: it’s almost unimaginable that someone would look at the Chief Rabbinate - the most visible arm of Israel’s institutional religious status quo - see its behavior, and be impressed with Torah Judaism. That failure is a textbook example of desecration of the divine name. If God has given us the State of Israel as a miraculous gift, we need to respond to that gift in a way that sanctifies the name of heaven. At the moment, our religious establishment is doing nothing of the sort.

And it matters - both to Jews in Israel and to Jews across the world. The decline and fall of the Chief Rabbinate has been especially apparent over the past few weeks, and it’s a story worth talking about - so that maybe, with enough of an outcry, we can help to inspire some change.

Rabbi Seth Farber has been working for years to make the Chief Rabbinate live up to Torah ideals, and he has become an expert on its inner workings. It was an honor for Scott to speak with him about the recent events that have taken place, and what needs to be done moving forward.

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