The Netanya Religious Council failed to convene its scheduled
meeting last week, after Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-
Doron and the city's Chief Rabbi ruled that the Orthodox
council members did not have to sit with their Reform
counterparts.
The meeting was called to order by council chairman Dov
Dombrovitch, who told the nine of 26 members who attended
that he had received orders from the Chief Rabbinate and
Rabbi David Chelouche, the city's chief rabbi, to cancel the
meeting. Rabbi Chelouche had written Dombrovitch that "as
Chief Rabbi I am informing you that the religious council may
not be convened with the representative of the Reform
movement."
Rabbi Bakshi-Doron's bureau chief also wrote to Dombrovitch,
informing him that, according to Chief Rabbinical Council
directives, it is forbidden to sit on the councils with
Reform and Conservative representatives.
The Netanya religious council has been convened twice in the
past 12 months with a Reform representative, Dr. Joyce
Brenner. But after receiving the two letters, Dombrovitch
told the nine council members who showed up for the meeting
that he would not open it.
Dombrovitch explained that the letters seemed to contradict
the religious services law but that he could not decide the
matter himself, and would appeal to the attorney general for
instruction. The move was aimed at preventing the Orthodox
from sitting with Dr. Brenner, who 11 months ago became the
first Reform person in the country's history to take part in
a meeting of a local religious council as a representative of
the Meretz movement.
The executive committee of UTJ's Rabbinical Committee had
learned about the expected meeting with the Reform
representative and made intensive efforts to prevent the
meeting from convening. In a related development, Jerusalem's
Religious Council did not formally meet last week because it
was missing the necessary quorum (one-third of its
members).
It was the third consecutive time that a meeting of the body
has been canceled. The council is being boycotted by most of
its Orthodox members, who are following the guidance of the
Gedolim. The boycott was unexpected. Up until the
scheduled meeting, it was believed that in the wake of the
recent passage of the Religious Councils Law in the Knesset,
the council would meet and its members would sign their
declaration of allegiance to the chief and local
rabbinates.
But in the wake of the committee's decision, only five
members appeared for the meeting: council chair Rabbi Yitzhak
Ralbag; the Conservative Ehud Bandel; the Reform Naamah
Kelman; and two additional members.
In accordance with the terms of the Religious Councils Law,
Degel Hatorah had been prepared to have the Jerusalem
religious council meet--with the proviso that the Reform and
Conservative representatives sign a declaration acknowledging
their acceptance of rabbinical decisions. The boycott was
made possible by the recent regulation issued by Religious
Affairs Minister Eli Suissa, by which a religious council
meeting can only be convened if there is a quorum of a third
of its members. Under this arrangement, representatives can
prevent a council from convening ad infinitum, or at least
until Suissa appoints an official to chair the meetings.
The minister announced that he was planning on setting up
new, smaller religious councils in those places where the
gatherings have not convened.
Meanwhile, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron said
that he had secured agreement in principle from all the
religious parties to scrap the religious councils.
Speaking to Ha'aretz after ordering the Netanya
religious council not to meet, Rabbi Bakshi-Doron said that
United Torah Judaism had already explicitly decided to
support scrapping the councils, while Shas had reached the
same conclusion in principle.
The chief rabbi also spoke with Deputy Religious Affairs
Minister Yigal Bibi of the NRP, and heard from him that the
National Religious Party was willing to consider alternatives
to the religious councils. Bibi is considered very close to
the leading rabbis of the religious Zionist movement,
Mordechai Eliyahu and Avraham Shapira.
Rabbi Bakshi-Doron expressed hope that canceling the meetings
of the Jerusalem and Netanya religious councils would lead to
scrapping the entire institution.
Yigal Bibi confirmed that the rabbis of the religious Zionist
camp had agreed to freeze the formation of new religious
councils for six months, during which time an attempt would
be made to formulate a new law to regulate religious
services
In Haifa, the city's Religious Council was the first in the
country to implement the Religious Councils Law. Reform and
Conservative movement representatives signed an affidavit
stating that they undertook to act in accordance with the
rulings of the local rabbinate and the Chief Rabbinate.
Religious council officials, were surprised that the Reform
and Conservative members would sign the undertaking, which
negates their lifestyle.
According to the Religious Councils Law, a member who
violates this undertaking, will be expelled from the council
immediately. Last week, all the members of the religious
council came to the council's office to sign the declaration.
The council's chairman, Mr. Yitzchok Getz said that the two
non-Orthodox members arrived at the office in the company of
large television crews, and signed the declaration without
any problems.
Prior to the signing, the text of the declaration was read to
the representatives by the council's legal advisor. Council
officials were irate over the signing and noted that the
lifestyles of those representatives clearly negate the
content of their undertaking.
Only recently, the Reform member said that she drives to her
temple on Shabbos, and that she does not keep kosher.
The secretary general of Degel HaTorah, Rabbi Moshe Gafni,
noted that the Rabbinical Committee is trying to devise other
ways to prevent the members of the religious council from
sitting with representatives who brazenly sign a false
declaration.
These messages were conveyed to the chairman of the religious
council, Yitzchok Getz, so that he should do his utmost not
to convene the council.
