Hgr"y Metzger: Is the Chief Rabbinate orthodox? Really not

Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yona Metzger, launches an attack against those who believe that the Chief Rabbinate is not Zionist enough, proving that it has taken a number of steps that were not necessarily to the spirit of the Orthodox.


Metzger carried out the surprising words at the Jerusalem conference of Besheva, held at the Ramada Jerusalem, attended mostly by the religious - national community; before who the Rabbi asked to say what they expect to hear.


At the beginning of the piercing freight he carried, Rabbi Metzger preceded and said that because it is probably the last time he was attending the conference as chief rabbi of this kind, he is not afraid of expressing what is in his heart.

Initially the Rabbi referred to the issue of recruiting yeshiva students and Kollel scholars, and stated that one who sits at the Kollel or Yeshiva and does not study Torah, should join the army, whilst adding, 'we believe they are part of the protection of the people and the country, and part of the armies of Israel that I am proud that I served in."


"Four times a year there are national rabbi tests," Rabbi Metzger recounted the wonders of the current Chief Rabbinate. "In the past there were 900 examinees a year and now we have to 6600 that are examined. In the past a majority was national religious and a little haredim, but today there are a variety of hats, from Zebras (clothing of Toldos Avraham Yitzchak and Toldos Aharon) up until sandals. Council of Chief is constructed of all of Klal Yisrael. We have on one hand Rabbi Grossman and Rabbi Avraham Yosef, and on the other the Rabbi Yaakov Shapira and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu," Rabbi Metzger said, adding that it fulfilled the hope of the Rabbi Kook that the ultra-Orthodox will also recognize the institution of the rabbinate.

When Rabbi Metzger wants to shatter the myth associated with stigma and 'spot' stuck to the Chief Rabbinate, as if approached in recent years to the Haredi public, he refutes this through a series of achievements that the haredi public sector was not comfortable with.


"They tell us, 'You are overly strict, you discredit us. Chief Rabbinate recently allowed women to serve as evidence for anything (about being single), we made their way as rabbinical lawyers and gave them the way to be used as a kashrut supervisor.


"Ninety years ago there was no such thing. We brought the solutions with regard to the area of graves at the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, against factions which publicly demonstrated against it, caused the IDF conversions to be recognized, assimilated praying for the soldiers in the synagogues, we brought important an achievement in that Jerusalem Day and Independence Day are celebrated if they fall on Shabbos on other days, not to cause Shabbos desecration and many other Zionist achievements. Then how can one say the Chief Rabbinate is cut off?

Metzger also said that he visits in secular kibbutzim where there is no trace of religion and breathes into its residents the Jewish spark. "We continue the way of the well known Rabbis of Rabbi Sonnenfeld and Rav Kook who plowed the earth to spread Judaism," he boasted.


Metzger concluded in an acute and popular and simultaneously transmitting statement: "We get hit by all. Haredim and religious Zionists, which means we're going to the middle and walk the center to accommodate all parts of the nation."

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!