Tel Aviv is set to choose a new city rabbi on Sunday, after nine years without one.

The race is shaping up as a clash between an ultra-Orthodox candidate backed by the Sephardic Haredi Shas party, and a contender supported by non-Haredi parties and civic groups, according to Hebrew media reports.

And Shas is said to have the upper hand thanks to a reported political deal with Mayor Ron Huldai, who is a member of the 64-person committee that will choose the rabbi.

Municipal rabbis must be men ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and be strictly Orthodox. They are meant to serve as the chief religious authority for their city’s Jewish residents, signing off on documents such as marriage licenses and kosher certificates for local restaurants. They also act as the city’s spiritual leader, attend events, meet the public, and are featured in the media.

In recent years, Tel Aviv, known as a bastion of Israeli secularism, has experienced growing tensions over public displays of religious life. The new chief rabbi is likely to become a prominent voice in the public debate around these issues. He will also serve as an ex officio member of the Chief Rabbinate Council, the government’s prime authority on Jewish law and provider of Jewish religious services.

Gender-segregated prayers in public spaces in the city have sparked controversy in recent years. In September 2023, verbal confrontations erupted between worshipers and protesters at a public Yom Kippur prayer in the central Dizengoff Square. A municipal instruction last year to synagogues to “provide religious services… without distinction of origin or gender” also sparked a firestorm, though the city reiterated that gender partitions could remain in the houses of worship.

The frontrunners in Sunday’s race are thought to be Shas-backed Rabbi Zevadia Cohen and Rabbi Haim Amsalem.

Cohen is the head of the rabbinical courts in Tel Aviv. He is close to the Yosef rabbinical dynasty, and especially to former Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, son of the late chief rabbi, Sephardic sage and Shas founder Ovadia Yosef, and brother to current Chief Rabbi David Yosef.

Amsalem was once a Shas MK himself, but over the past 15 years has broken with the party and advocated a return to a Sephardic Judaism that, in his view, was once more pragmatic and open. In the past he has advocated for making the conversion process more........

© The Times of Israel