Chief rabbi suspends monthly rabbinate meetings due to conflict with legal department

Chief Rabbi David Lau has taken the unusual step of suspending all meetings of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate due to what he has deemed to be the unacceptable behavior of the rabbinate’s legal adviser.

Lau claims that the legal adviser has overstepped his authority and has prevented the rabbinate’s council, a 15-member decision-making body, from deliberating on some issues and has overruled some of its decisions.

In a letter to the attorney-general, Lau said that he would not convene another meeting of the council as long as the rabbinate’s legal adviser “does not change its ways, and recognize its place and authority.”

Explaining his position in a January 7 letter, Lau said that, “Unfortunately, the legal adviser permits himself to act as a superior authority to the council and, unfortunately, to make it and its decisions superfluous.”

Lau said the legal adviser does not explain his reservations regarding council decisions with legal reasoning, but says instead that there were procedural problems in the way decisions were made.

However, The Jerusalem Post understands that there have been substantive issues of disagreement and serious concerns regarding the procedural nature of some of the decisions in the Council of the Chief Rabbinate, leading to the current impasse between the chief rabbi and the rabbinate’s legal department.