Dismissal pending for head of Jerusalem Religious Council

The controversial head of the Jerusalem Religious Council, Yehoshua Yishai, has been summoned by the Religious Services Ministry for a hearing pending dismissal due to procedural violations and corruption allegations.

Yishai has been accused of involvement in numerous scandals involving the Jerusalem religious council which he runs, leading the Jerusalem city comptroller to conclude in an exhaustive document in 2017 that the council’s operations under his management are “not in order legally, disciplinarily or ethically.”

The report noted that Yishai was flown out to foreign destinations at the expense of a company which provided services to the Jerusalem religious council, raising concerns of the improper award of council contracts.

Yishai also allegedly gave jobs to his close family members without issuing a tender as required by law, is suspected of using council maintenance employees for his private purposes and is accused of other similar violations as well.

In addition, Yishai has also sought to undermine the status of Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern, a highly respected and esteemed Torah scholar, whose ongoing tenure is in currently in doubt due to his having reached the age of retirement.

Yishai had the lock on Stern’s office changed in February, and in April removed his name from city documents regarding the sale of leaven for Jerusalem before Passover.

Separately, several organizations have called for women to be appointed to the 129 religious councils around the country where their presence has traditionally been extremely sparse.

Local religious councils are the bodies responsible for providing critical religious services such as kashrut, marriage registration and the operation of mikvaot for the residents in their jurisdiction.

Members of the councils are supposed to be selected by the local municipal council, the minister of religious services and the local municipal rabbi within 12 months of municipal elections, but owing to the 18 months of national elections this was impossible.

The Itim, Neemanei Torah Va’Avodah, Koleich and Organization of State-Oriented Ultra-Orthodox Communities called on Tuesday for women to be appointed to these bodies now that they can be formed.

“The severe lack of representation of women on local religious councils around the country is a failure that needs to be rectified as part of the need to provide help to the varied needs of all communities in local authorities,” said the organizations in a joint statement.

They called in particular on the Bayit Yehudi Party to adopt the appointment of women as a goal, given that the party has formed a committee to prepare for the inevitable political battles over appointments to these influential bodies.