Chief Rabbi

"Chief rabbinate" redirects here. See also Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Chief Rabbi (Hebrew: רב ראשי, romanized: Rav Rashi) is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a capitulation by Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, Israel has had two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.[1]

Cities with large Jewish communities may also have their own chief rabbis; this is especially the case in Israel but has also been past practice in major Jewish centers in Europe prior to the Holocaust. North American cities rarely have chief rabbis. One exception however is Montreal, with two—one for the Ashkenazi community, the other for the Sephardi.

Jewish law provides no scriptural or Talmudic support for the post of a "chief rabbi." The office, however, is said by many to find its precedent in the religio-political authority figures of Jewish antiquity (e.g., kings, high priests, patriarchs, exilarchs and geonim).[2] The position arose in Europe in the Middle Ages from governing authorities largely for secular administrative reasons such as collecting taxes and registering vital statistics, and for providing an intermediary between the government and the Jewish community, for example in the establishment of the Crown rabbi in several kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, the rab de la corte in the Kingdom of Castile or the arrabi mor in the Kingdom of Portugal, likely influenced by the expectations of their Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican governments and neighbors.[3] Similarly, in the 19th century there was a Crown rabbi of the Russian Empire.[4]

  1. ^ Cameron Brown. "Rabbi Ovadia Yosef And His Culture War in Israel". Meria.idc.ac.il. Archived from the original on 29 October 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
  2. ^ "Judaism: The Chief Rabbinate". The Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  3. ^ Himelstein, Shmuel (2011). "Chief Rabbinate". In Berlin, Adele (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2nd ed.). Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-19-973004-9. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  4. ^ Kaplan Appel, Tamar, ed. (3 August 2010). "Crown Rabbi". The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300119039. OCLC 170203576. Archived from the original on 27 March 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2015.