New Rabbis for Israel

The two chief rabbis of Israel are among the most powerful men in that country--and indeed in world Judaism. One is the spiritual leader for Israel's Ashkenazic Jews, the other the religious master of the nation's Sephardic Jews.* Each is entrusted with the complex and often controversial task of ruling on Halakhah--Jewish religious law --for his people. In Israel, where rabbinical authorities totally control such matters as marriage and divorce for Jews and influence their behavior in many phases of public life, the rulings are often critical to the very functioning of society. Last week the two elderly incumbents in the offices, one 86, the other 76, were voted out of office and two new rabbis elected by a special Israeli electoral college.

Chosen to head Israel's Ashkenazic Jews was Shlomo Goren, 54, former chief of army chaplains and Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. New leader of Israel's Sephardic Jews is the Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, scholarly, Baghdad-born Ovadia Yosef, 52.

Both Goren and Yosef enjoy wide popularity, partly because they are both more Israeli in outlook than their predecessors. Goren won some of his fame as a flamboyant warrior rabbi who doggedly earned his paratroop wings after breaking his leg in his first jump. During the Six-Day War, he made a point of trying to be first wherever he went --to the Wailing Wall, for instance, where he sounded the shofar (the traditional ram's horn). He is also admired as an astute scholar and consummate finder of Halakhah loopholes that more easily accommodate Orthodox observance to a technological world.

Yosef's wide respect results partly from his edifying family life (three of his eleven children are themselves rabbis), mainly from an immense erudition that made him a rabbinical-court judge at the age of 25. He is famous for being able to talk on Halakhah for hours on end, citing obscure Talmudic judgments without any notes at all. Though strictly Orthodox, Yosef can hand down opinions that have a liberalizing effect, as he did recently when he ruled that slacks (previously forbidden) were more modest than miniskirts for Israeli army girls.

Driving Jeeps. The two men will need to heal a rift between religious and secular Israelis that has been exacerbated recently by sectarian disputes and narrow rabbinical vision. Religious control over marriage law has prompted some legislators to suggest a limited civil marriage law. Goren now asks that the bill's backers postpone introducing it for a year "to prove what we can do" by way of sophisticated interpretation of the law to accommodate both religious and nonreligious Jews. "Perhaps," says Goren, "we can create a whole new atmosphere and build a bridge of love between the two communities of the population." When he was chief rabbi of the army, Goren found a way for Orthodox soldiers to drive jeeps or operate equipment such as radar on the Sabbath by pointing out the soldier's compelling duty to preserve Israel's security. In a like vein, says Goren,"if it is essential [for an Orthodox policeman] to control traffic on the Sabbath, then the way must be found to do it within Halakhah."

Some differences between secular and religious Israelis are likely to remain unresolved, however. Both Goren and Yosef oppose the amended Law of Return, which considers all Jewish converts to be Jews. The new chief rabbis both insist that only Jews converted strictly according to Halakhah (including a ritual bath for both men and women and circumcision for men) can be considered Jewish. Reform and Conservative procedures do not always follow such strict requirements.

Because most of the world's Jews (fully 84%) are Ashkenazim, it is Goren who will have the larger international following. His most ambitious project is to convoke a worldwide council of rabbinical scholars, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic, to discuss basic issues "in a spirit of understanding and friendship." He has called upon Boston's pre-eminent Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (TIME, April 10), to chair the council. Should he make that dream come to pass, Goren will bring a new ecumenical dimension to Israel's rabbinate.

* Ashkenazic Jews, who take their name from the medieval Hebrew word for Germany, spread throughout Europe and to the Americas. Sephardic Jews came out of medieval Spain; early Sephardim arrivals in North America formed the first Jewish communities in what is now the U.S.

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