The "One Chief Rabbi" bill, which passed another important stage today, is not a plan to abolish two chief rabbis for Israel, but rather a plan to abolish the three-hundred-year-old historical institution of the Rishon LeZion - the Sephardic Chief Rabbi - and thereby deepen Ashkenazi hegemony in the world of rabbiny.
And more importantly: a deeper look will reveal that this is yet another (huge) victory that the current government is unwittingly granting to the ultra-Orthodox, which is different from Israeliness.
The Rishon LeZion Institute serves as one of the threads, not to mention the cables, that connect the Shasniks to Israeliness, to the symbols of the state, and to Zionism.
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The fact that senior Shesnik rabbis who serve in office are part of the symbols of the state, participate in state events, mutter the word "Haktikva" and sit at events where there is women's singing and connect with Israeliness is something that no one could have succeeded in innovating in the current generation.
It's almost like the flag on the roof of the Ponevezh yeshiva on Independence Day, where the only reason they continue to hang it is because that's how it's been accepted for years.
The Shasniks take this state institution very seriously and, unlike the Ashkenazi Haredim, they send their greatest rabbis to it and thus get closer to Israeliism. So what is the current government doing? It is distancing it.
