The Battle for the Next Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
For quite some time there has been a battle going on between ultra-Orthodox and national-religious Ashkenazim over who would be the next Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Because of this fighting, there hasn’t been a functioning Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for nine years.
According this report in Kikar Hashabbat and this one at Kipa, (Hebrew) the process by which the chief rabbis are selected has all but guaranteed that Rabbi Aryeh Stern, a national-religious rabbi, will be the next Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem. The next Chief Sephardic Rabbi will be Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. There hasn’t been so much fighting regarding the post of Chief Sephardic Rabbi, and Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has reportedly refused to get involved with the Ashkenazi battles.
I don’t know much about Rabbi Stern, but I am the proud owner of Rabbi Yosef’s Yalkut Yosef and numerous other books of his. I even had the chance to meet him once at his yeshiva when I went there to buy a set of Yalkut Yosef for a teacher of mine.
January 3rd, 2012 at 1:52 am
So now the Ashkenazim are a separate race?!
Rabbi Aryeh Stern has been running Machon Halakhah Berurah for many years. Besides publishing the Halakhah Berurah gemaras, they have a very extensive online index for discussions of Mishneh Torah. http://www.halachabrura.org/e-mavorambam.htm