Haredim oppose temporary appointment of Rav Dichovsky

Rav Shlomo Dichovsky was just appointed to be the temporary director of the Israeli Batei Din. He had to retire a couple years ago, due to his age, from his position as Dayan on many batei din around Israel, along with having been appointed to the Beis Din HaGadol of Yerushalayim. He is supposedly considered one of the top and senior dayanim in the world of dayanus.

There was recently an article on Rav Dichovsky in Mishpacha and I, personally, was very impressed with what I read. The impression I got from the article was a very wise man, a talmid chacham, very intelligent, and thoughtful.

One story in particular had struck me, and I think I wrote about it back then. It was that he had been considered for the Israel Supreme Court, as the SC Justice Aharon Barak had been trying to integrate a religious judge into the SC system, and he was an obvious choice. He related that he consulted with Rav Elyashiv about it, and Rav Elyashiv opposed it (I don't remember why offhand). At that point Rav Dichovsky rejected Aharon Barak's offer.

Now with this temporary appointment, he has upset the Haredim, though I don't know why. When the appointment was recently announced, MK Gafni opposed it and stormed out of the committee session discussing the appointments. .

Some suspect that the temporary appointment, supposedly until they find a new person for the job, is too open ended and they really intend it to be long term and not really look for someone to fill the position, leaving Rav D in the position. Even if that were the reason for the Haredim to be upset I still don't know what their problem is with Rav Dichovsky. Why would they oppose him being in that position?

They say Rav Dichovsky is an independent person and judges according to how he evaluates the case and the relevant halacha, and doesn't necessarily tow the party line. I always thought that this is exactly what a dayan is supposed to do, so this whole story makes no sense - the haredim want dayanim who are more loyal to a party or a specific rav than to judging each case according to its merits and the shulchan aruch... it makes no sense.