Israeli rabbinate

Chief Rabbinate Council disputes Tzohar kashrut approval hours after authorization

“The approval was granted unlawfully and did not go through the Chief Rabbinate Council as required,” Director General of the Ministry of Religious Services Yehuda Avidan said.

A Tzohar kashrut sticker in a window
Three women who arrived in the morning to sit the Rabbinate exams finally do so at a four-hour delay, April 27, 2026

Rabbinate accused of defying court as Israeli women left waiting for exams

SUPREME COURT Justice Noam Sohlberg attends a ceremony for fallen Israeli soldiers whose burial place is unknown at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem on March 6.

Rabbinate seeks retrial on ruling allowing women to take exams, blames 'halachic noncompliance'

 Ten Israeli couples with a member serving in the IDF taking part in a mass wedding ceremony part of Chabad of Savyon’s “Marrying the Warriors”, in Tel Aviv Port, March 5, 2024.

Israelis want civil marriage, to break rabbinic monopoly in new Tu B'Av poll


A rabbinical dynasty

"They have a deep faith, as a moral compass, but they don’t understand what has turned Judaism into what they see as a dark and oppressive way of expressing it"

At the ceremony marking the 100th ordination of a graduate from Hebrew Union College’s Israeli Reform rabbinical program

‘Campaign of persecution’ against independent kashrut

“These fines are not actually fines, but rather extortion via threats."

Kosher certificates

The God of vengeance and the God of mercy

The Pharisees are strict legalists.

Illustration by Pepe Fainberg

Local rabbinate checking 'Jewishness' of restaurant employees, Knesset hears

"Next you’ll tell us to drop our trousers to check our circumcision," MK says at discrimination hearing.

A Kashrut certificate hangs at the entrance to a bakery in Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market

Divorce refusal to be considered when applying to be rabbinical judge

Having refused to give a divorce will not, however, automatically disqualify a candidate

The rabbis of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate

Peggy Cidor’s round-up of city affairs

‘ONCE YOU’RE able to have a sense of humor about something, you’re letting the other person know that you don’t take yourself that seriously, which opens up the space. An aspect of what gets a laugh in comedy is just truth,’ says local funnyman David Kilimnick.

'Who is a Jew?' can now be answered by genetic testing

The mass immigration of Jews from the FSU to Israel was seen as a welcome blessing, but many have experienced difficulties proving their Jewish identity.

Salman Ichia (R), one of 19 Jews from Yemen, who were brought to Israel in what immigration officials described as the last covert operation to move members of a dwindling Jewish community dating back two millennia.

Independent authority defies Rabbinate, issues kosher certificates

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate currently has a monopoly over the issuing of kashrut certificates, though a recent High Court ruling has opened the door to a shift in the status quo.

RABBI AHARON Leibowitz (right), one of the founders of ‘Hashgacha Pratit,’ is photographed on the job at the Kaima Farm in Beit Zeit alongside two young farm helpers.

'Jewish tradition and Halacha have become stagnant'

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo pulls no punches in telling the 'Post' how Judaism and the rabbinic establishment can begin to respond to the current reality.

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Rabbinical court rules against Jewish marriage rites for Messianic Jews

The complexity of the case required the involvement of the deputy president of the court together with two senior rabbinical judges.

The Rabbinical Court of Tel Aviv