BishopAccountability.org

Case against Rabbi Metzger Could Weaken Ultra-Orthodox Bid for Chief Rabbinate

By Yair Ettinger
The Harretz
June 24, 2013

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/case-against-rabbi-metzger-could-weaken-ultra-orthodox-bid-for-chief-rabbinate.premium-1.531726

How will the investigation of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger affect the elections set to take place a month from now, which will determine who the chief rabbis will be for the next ten years? Although it’s very hard to predict how the 150-member electoral committee will behave, the investigation of Metzger is undermining the confidence of the Haredi candidates from Shas and Degel Hatorah who were thought of as favorites since legislation that would have strengthened the religious-Zionist candidates was shelved last week. This is how the election campaign, with all its instability, appears at the moment — and there could be further upheavals in store over the next month.

Of the 150 members of the electoral committee, 123 are known for their positions as chief rabbis of cities and local authorities, rabbinic judges, mayors and heads of religious councils. Twenty others are representatives of the public, appointed by the chief rabbis and by the minister of religious services. Among the remaining seven are two ministers — Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz and Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat, who were appointed on Sunday, and another five members of Knesset.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein must now decide what will happen to Rabbi Metzger’s representatives on the committee. By law, each of the two chief rabbis appoints five representatives of the public. Metzger and his Sephardi colleague, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, handed in their lists last Thursday, shortly before Metzger’s investigation began. Metzger’s list contains one prominent name, that of Rabbi Ben-Tzion Tzioni, the same man who was arrested last Thursday and was allegedly one of the people who gave bribe money to the chief rabbi. His name allegedly links the two, a matter that the police will be probing, while the four other representatives will come under scrutiny for other reasons.




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