The Minister of Religious Services, Rabbi Yaakov Avitan, spoke tonight (Saturday night) as the "leading rabbi," in the weekly shiur of the Chief Rabbi Yosef.
The Prime Minister congratulated the incoming minister and called on him to work to appoint rabbis in the cities: "A lot of work needs to be done. The public has been waiting a long time, there are over twenty cities in the country like sheep without a shepherd, without rabbis.".
Rabbi Yosef added: "This matter needs to be expedited. Until a city rabbi is appointed, the soul is being taken out. His Honor will do it as quickly as possible.".
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The Chief Justice called on the Minister of Religious Services to complete the handling of these procedures with the options before him: "How is it possible for Tel Aviv to have no city rabbi, Haifa? In Jerusalem we do not have an Ashkenazi chief rabbi, and there are other cities that do not have rabbis. We need to expedite what can be done, everything according to the law. I hope that His Excellency will finish his term and be able to sign off on 25 city rabbis, an eighth of them.".
The term of office of the rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Aryeh Stern, was terminated by law after he reached retirement, and the previous Minister of Religious Affairs refused to extend his term.
About six months ago, Rabbi Aryeh Stern was unable to enter his office at the Religious Council, after the office was locked and the lock was changed.
After several minutes in which the city rabbi was forced to wait outside in disgrace, one of the religious council employees arrived and opened the door to his office for Rabbi Stern.
The keys were replaced the night before by the chairman of the religious council, Yehoshua Yishai, claiming that the key had broken during cleaning. However, Yishai later refused to give Rabbi Stern a key to the office, claiming that his term as the city's rabbi had expired.
