Yisrael Beiteinu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman has laid out a sweeping overhaul of the Chief Rabbinate that he says he will demand in any future coalition: one Chief Rabbi for the country, appointed by the prime minister through the same process used to choose the Shin Bet director, with no electoral assembly and no Ashkenazi-Sephardi split.
In an interview in the Kikar HaShabbat studio, Liberman said the plan would apply at every level. "There will be one Chief Rabbi for the State of Israel, one Chief Rabbi for every city, for every local authority, we don't need two rabbis," he declared. The current system, in place since the founding of the state, appoints separate Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis both nationally and in most cities.
The more radical change is in how the rabbi would be chosen. Liberman wants to scrap the traditional electoral assembly, a body of rabbis and public figures that has selected Chief Rabbis since 1921 under the British Mandate, and replace it with a process modelled on senior security appointments.
