Choosing A New City Rabbi

I am not sure the level of intervention by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in the election, or shall I say selection, process for Jerusalem Chief Rabbis is really good in the democratic process, but then again I think the whole process itself has proven itself to be pretty lousy and rife with corruption, nepotism and protexia rather than choosing the right rabbi based on merits alone.

Regardless of that point, I think Barkat's recent petition, which was accepted by the judges, to change the criteria by which the selection of the rabbis by the committee appointed to do so is a good and fair one.

I don't have a clear understanding of the process of selection. It involves a series of synagogue leaders from around the city each having a vote to the committee of what rabbi they support for the position. The number of votes, or the influence of the vote, is based on the size of the synagogue, and only synagogues over certain sizes are able to participate in this. However it works exactly, it is a ridiculous process that only takes into account the opinion of a fraction of the residents, and in a weighted manner giving more influence to some over others.

The system is so bad that it is always being challenged in court, causing many delays in the selection process. This is why there has not been a chief rabbi of Jerusalem since 2002.

Barkat's latest petition against the process was based on the idea that it is not just shul-goers who need the services of a chief rabbi, but all residents, even secular residents, need such services, and therefore should also have a say in the election, or selection, of the rabbi.

He is right. The secular, the non-shull-goers, the less-frequently-shul-goers, and others in similar categories, all probably need the city rabbis services more than the shul-goers. Many, a large percentage, of shul-goers anyway do not really need the services provided by the city's rabbinate. Many don't rely on them for kashrut or eiruvs or weddings, using private hechsher services, such as those provided by the Badatz and other organizations. The only thing they really need from the city rabbinate is funding. And perhaps the opportunity for jobs in the rabbinate (i.e. creating your own protexia by putting your guy in the position who will then leave his mark by hiring many new rabbis in various fields from your communities).

Whereas the people who go less frequently to shul require the city rabbis for every religious aspect of their lives - the kosher food they eat is almost completely Rabbanut, the eiruvs they use (whether they like it or not) are the rabbanut eiruvs, the mikvas the traditional women go to are rabbanut makivas, they register their weddings and divorces with the rabbanut rather than with the various badatz organizations. etc.

The very method by which the rabbis have been chosen until now, besides for being a basically corrupt process, has been way too exclusive giving the selection power into the hands of the few, many of which do not even rely on the rabbinates offices anyway. The latest petition will at least change that, even if it does not change the whole stinking process, and make the selection more inclusive, and give more of the people more say in what goes on in the city.