New rule: a quarter of chief rabbis voters will be women

Two weeks before the chief rabbi's end of term: proposal of MK Elazar Stern and MK Shai Piron may cause turmoil in the elections of chief rabbis.

MK Eliezer Stern and MK Shai Peron proposed to the Knesset, a law to change the Electoral Body Chief Rabbinate.

The proposal signed by MKs from various parties including Shai Piron (Yesh Atid), Yitzchak Herzog (Avodah), Uri Orbach (Habayit Hayehudi), David Tzur (Hatnua) and Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid).

So, the proposal is that only chief rabbi of experience or education will be elected as well as the City rabbinate, and Dayanut. So far, experience and education in one of two areas was not required and rabbis who did not meet the criteria were selected.
The explanatory notes to the proposal stated that for years women did not have any representation in the electoral body, and today their number is very small, only about 2%, while the proportion in the population is about 50%. Beyond the basic principle of gender equality, there is a current discrimination in the electoral body composition pre-built against women, since more than 50% of the Electoral College is composed of rabbis, and therefore automatically excluded from representation of women in it. Therefore it is proposed that through the mechanism of gender balance in representation electoral body will be at least 25% women.

MK Eliezer Stern: "In the current situation no matter what the will of the people is and not the wishes of the leadership team, but a group of rabbis in charge may perpetuate the separation of the rabbinate needs of society. Without changing the Chief Rabbinate will be cut off from Israeli society. Only 2 percent of women in the Electoral College is just one example of this."

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!