Religious Affairs Minister Kahane Aims To Control Committee For Appointing Rabbinical Judges

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Religious Affairs minister Matan Kahane intends on bringing a new bill to the Knesset which will lead to a change in the composition of the committee for appointing rabbinical judges. The change will allow for a half of the representatives of the government and the Knesset on the committee to be women. Since there are no Chareidi women in the Knesset, this means that besides Kahane and Zev Elkin, there will be female representatives from the Knesset.

Since there are also other representatives on the committee, Kahane would have a 7-4 majority over the Chareidi representatives which will allow him to appoint rabbinical judges without reaching deals with the Chareidi representatives.

In the past years with Shas controlling the Religious Affairs ministry, the rabbinical judges have been appointed based on one third Ashkenazi chareidi, one third Sefardi chareidi and one third national religious judges.

Kahane intends to bring the bill to the cabinet meeting on Sunday. On Monday Kahane outlined the changes he intends to implement in other matters of religious affairs:

“Let’s talk about marriage. Young people are evading marriage in the rabbinate. According to a recent study by the ministry in the past 3 years the number of couples marrying in the rabbinate has fallen by 6%.”

Regarding kashrus, Kahane said that “everyone knows that if one of you (chareidim) sit in a restaurant with a rabbinate hechsher, he wouldn’t even drink water. What are you afraid of? That there will effective kashrus? That people will start eating kosher in rabbinate-supervised restaurants?”

Regarding the subject of conversion, Kahane promised that he would allow local rabbis to perform conversions and said that he did not see why army conversions could not be accepted. He also claimed that the chareidim had not done enough to maintain the Shabbos in Israel, adding that “if we would have accepted the Gavison-Medan initiative 20 years ago which prohibited commerce on Shabbos, the situation would have been much better.”

Kahane promised to “make Judaism a unifying factor and not a polarizing factor and will spread more Judaism and sanctify G-d’s name.”

יצוין כי בשנים האחרונות ש”ס המשיכה במסורת של שוויון במינוי הדיינים. שליש דיינים ספרדים, שליש דיינים אשכנזים ושליש דיינים מהציונות הדתית. כעת חוששים בסיעות החרדיות שהשר כהנא יבחר להפר את השוויון ולמנות רוב דיינים מהציונות הדתית, בניהם כאלו המזוהים עם רבני צהר.

כבר ערב השבעת הממשלה חשף ‘כיכר השבת’ את הכוונה של ראש הממשלה, נפתלי בנט והשר כהנא לבצע מהפך במשרד לשירותי דת ולשנות את גוף הבוחר את הדיינים והרבנים בכדי למנות כאלו המזוהים יותר עם הציונות הדתית הליברלית יותר.

כזכור, בריאיון באולפן ‘כיכר השבת’ התייחס השר כהנא לשאיפות שלו במשרד לשירותי דת ואמר: “אנסה לשנות את האיזון שהופר בהקשר מינוי רבנים. למנות יותר רבנים מהציונות הדתית”