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Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Promises More of the Same Flawed Policies After Election
Header of an instruction from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate for how to observe Shabbat during the war with Hamas. (Photo: Screenshot)
While the world’s attention has been focused on the American election, there has been a far less publicized, but still significant, election in Israel for the Chief Rabbinate.
After months of wrangling, the election was finally decided, with left and right fighting about egalitarianism, and who should sit on the electoral committee.
I have always been a rebel and disliked authority and power — particularly when it is associated with religion, from which I expect a higher level of ethics and morality than elsewhere.
And yet, I am constantly disappointed. When people achieve authority, they tend to make decisions based on preserving their power, rather than the moral criteria. That is why religion and politics are two very different areas of human activity that really ought to be kept apart.
Sadly, they rarely are.
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate controls important levers of income and authority — from marriage and divorce, to conversions and kashrut. It also provides extremely well paid and plentiful easy jobs for Orthodox boys (less so for the girls), and like all bureaucracies, is very bureaucratic.
This is fertile ground for corruption, and indeed unpopularity. Yet there are some wonderful, honest, devoted and impressive rabbis serving in Israel’s rabbinate today.
The tensions that we have witnessed in Israel between ethnic groups, the right and the left, secular and the religious, the Supreme Court and its critics, and the different voices within them, illustrate the near impossibility of reconciliation and compromise.
Caught between conflicting interests comes the Chief Rabbinate, whose courts run parallel with secular courts. It’s a government agency of great power and reach that is unpopular with many sectors of Jewish life in Israel today, for good reason.
Candidates for the Chief Rabbinate who are not approved of by the Haredi world stand little chance of getting elected. As a result, some Chief Rabbis have been convicted of crimes, and others were suspected of crimes. And the only criterion seems to be getting enough Haredi votes.
In the early years of the state, most of the state rabbis were committed to the cause of a Jewish State, even if they wouldn’t necessarily call themselves Zionists politically. The Chief Rabbinates performed very well given the constraints. Over time, the institution, like most others in Israel, was slowly infected by a bureaucracy of entitlement, laziness, and incompetence.
At first, the Haredi community simply ignored the Chief Rabbinate. Their religious and sometimes charismatic leaders and authorities were not elected or appointed. They emerged as natural leaders. They had their own standards and attitudes towards Israeli life. But then the Haredi community increased, and it saw opportunities.
The salaries of community and local rabbis were very attractive, and you didn’t have to have a secular education. Increasingly the Haredi world entered the rabbinate and over time, have come to dominate it, so that the moderates have largely been undercut.
This year, the Sephardi candidate got through easily in a predetermined election that saw yet another member of the Yosef dynasty intent on keeping it in one family. The Ashkenazi Lau family also tried to maintain their grip on the position, but could not gather enough support. The Ashkenazi election came down to two candidates. Eventually Rabbi Kalman Ber from Netanya was elected by 77-58. He defeated the more open and impressive Rabbi Micha Halevi of Petach Tikvah, who had support from the Religious Zionists.
Both rabbis have good reputations and claimed to be moderates. At the induction ceremony, they spoke of embracing all sectors of Israeli life, to support IDF soldiers, visit army camps, and comfort the families of kidnapped Israelis. Rabbi Yosef concluded in English with a Trumpian declaration that resonated with the audience: “We will make the Chief Rabbinate great again!” Chief Rabbi Ber echoed this commitment to unity, expressing the vision rooted in Rabbi Kook. “My greatest mission is to bring about unity among all parts of the people,” he said.
I have heard this before from Chief Rabbis across the world. Music to my ears. But given human nature, they rarely live up to their campaign promises. In Israel, as the winning candidates were elected thanks to Haredi votes, I cannot see any change in matters of law or the culture of the rabbinate. Any hope for a new era will once again be brushed under the carpet. And nothing will change. The only saving grace is that Chief Rabbis are only elected for 10 years. I pray I am proven wrong.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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Israel’s Yuval Raphael Advances to Grand Final of 2025 Eurovision Song Contest
Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title “New Day Will Rise” on stage at the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in the Arena St. Jakobshalle. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa via Reuters Connect
Israel’s Yuval Raphael advanced to the grand final of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest after a stunning performance of her song “New Day Will Rise” in the second semi-finals on Thursday night in Basel, Switzerland.
The 24-year-old, who is a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Nova music festival massacre, performed an emotional ballad in English, French, and Hebrew that was written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. The results of the semi-finals are based solely on public vote.
Ten acts from the second semi-final advanced to the grand final, including performers from Armenia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Malta. Raphael will compete in Saturday’s grand final against those acts and the qualifiers from Tuesday’s semi-final. They include performers from Albania, Iceland, Estonia, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Norway, San Marino, and the Netherlands. Also competing in the grand final is the Eurovision “Big Five” — Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy – and Switzerland, which was last year’s winner.
Unlike in the semi-finals, the results of the grand final are based on a combination of the televote and the jury vote, in which professional juries from all 37 participating countries vote for their favorites. Last year, a Eurovision jury member from Norway admitted that he refused to give points to Israel’s representative, Eden Golan, because of his personal resentment toward Israel’s military actions in the Gaza war.
There have been a number of public calls, including from national broadcasters and former Eurovision contestants, to have Israel banned from this year’s competition because of the country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
During a dress rehearsal for the semi-final on Thursday afternoon, audience members booed at Raphael, whistled, and waved oversized Palestinian flags. Under rules of the competition, all flags are allowed but there are limitations on the size. The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, which is organizing this year’s Eurovision events, said in a released statement that the audience members with the oversized flags were escorted out of the St Jakobshalle arena by security personnel.
The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest grand final will take place on Saturday night in Basel’s St Jackobshalle arena. The detailed results of the second semi-final will be revealed after the grand final.
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Iran, Europeans Hold Nuclear Talks, Agree to More, Diplomats Say
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Diplomats from Iran and the three European parties remaining in a moribund 2015 nuclear deal met in Istanbul on Friday, Iranian and British officials said, their first round of talks since the US began nuclear talks with Tehran in April.
The talks between senior diplomats from Iran and Britain, France, and Germany – known as the E3 – took place as US President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to limit Iran‘s nuclear program. On Friday he called on Iran to move quickly after he said his administration had put forward a proposal to Iran.
An Iranian source close to the negotiating team said Tehran has yet to receive the US proposal, “but Oman has got it and will hand it over to Tehran soon.”
The European powers are not part of current negotiations between Iran and the United States, the fourth round of which ended in Oman on Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
However, they have held repeated talks with the Iranians most recently in March where they discussed how they saw the parameters of a deal to replace the 2015 accord.
The three powers have sought to coordinate with Washington notably on whether and when they should reimpose UN sanctions against Tehran – known in diplomatic circles as the “snapback mechanism” – if no agreement is reached.
That coordination has not been easy with European diplomats bemoaning a lack of clarity in US policy on its negotiations with Tehran.
Iran and the Europeans agreed to hold further talks if needed, Iran‘s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on X on Friday.
“Iran and the three European countries are determined to maintain and make optimal use of diplomacy,” Gharibabadi said. “We will meet again to continue the discussions if necessary.”
British diplomat Christian Turner said on X that Iran and the E3 shared a commitment to dialogue and that they agreed to meet again, without giving a timeframe.
Under the terms of a UN resolution ratifying the 2015 nuclear pact, the three European powers have until October 18 to trigger the snapback mechanism before the resolution expires.
According to diplomats and a document seen by Reuters, the E3 countries may do this by August if no substantial deal can be found by then.
Relations between the E3 and Iran have worsened over the last year despite sporadic meetings, against a backdrop of new sanctions imposed on Tehran over its ballistic missile program, its detention of foreign citizens and support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met the equivalent of national security advisers of the E3 powers also in Istanbul on Friday to discuss Iran and Ukraine, a US official said.
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Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target
Illustrative: Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader
Israel struck Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif on Friday, continuing its campaign to degrade Houthi military capabilities and warning that the Iran-backed terrorist group’s top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, could be targeted if attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out retaliatory strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
On Friday, the Israeli military said the ports of Hodeidah and Salif were being used to transfer weapons, reiterating its warnings to residents of those areas to evacuate.
Residents in Hodeidah said they heard four loud booms and saw smoke rising from the port following the Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement they would hunt down the Houthis’ top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
“If the Houthis continue to fire missiles at the State of Israel, they will be severely harmed, and we will also hurt the leaders,” they said, adding that al-Houthi could join the list of terrorist figures killed by Israel, such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis are part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East, alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. About 60 percent of the Yemeni population lives under their control.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted or landed short.
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