Chief Rabbi

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Contents 1 Chief rabbis by country/region 1.1 Argentina 1.1.1 Ashkenazi 1.1.2 Sephardi 1.2 Australia 1.3 Austria 1.4 British Empire and Commonwealth 1.5 Chile 1.6 Cuba 1.7 Cyprus 1.8 Egypt 1.9 Estonia 1.10 Finland 1.11 France 1.12 Guatemala 1.13 Hungary 1.14 Iran 1.15 Ireland 1.16 Israel 1.16.1 Ashkenazi 1.16.2 Sephardi 1.16.3 Military Rabbinate 1.16.4 Mandate of Palestine 1.16.5 Ashkenazi 1.16.6 Sephardi 1.17 Lebanon 1.18 Morocco 1.19 Mexico 1.20 Poland 1.21 Russia 1.22 South Africa 1.23 Thailand 1.24 United States 1.25 Transylvania 1.26 Tunisia 1.27 Turkey 1.28 Uganda 1.29 Ukraine 1.30 Uruguay 1.31 Venezuela 1.31.1 Ashkenazi 1.31.2 Sephardi 2 Chief rabbis by city 2.1 Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2.2 Antwerp, Belgium 2.3 Baltimore, United States 2.4 Birobidzhan, Russia 2.5 Budapest, Hungary 2.6 Caracas, Venezuela 2.6.1 Ashkenazi 2.6.2 Sephardi 2.7 Chicago, United States 2.8 Haifa, Israel 2.8.1 Ashkenazi 2.8.2 Sephardi 2.9 Hebron, Israel 2.10 Hoboken, United States 2.11 Hong Kong, China 2.12 Jerusalem, Israel 2.12.1 Ashkenazi 2.12.2 Sephardi 2.13 Leiden, the Netherlands 2.14 Montreal, Canada 2.14.1 Ashkenazi 2.14.2 Sephardi 2.15 Moscow, Russia 2.16 Munich, Germany 2.17 New York City, United States 2.18 Nové Zámky, Slovakia 2.19 Rome, Italy 2.20 Rotterdam, the Netherlands 2.21 St. Louis, Missouri 2.22 Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel 2.22.1 Sephardi 2.23 Vienna, Austria 2.24 Warsaw, Poland 2.25 Zurich, Switzerland 3 References 4 External links

Chief Rabbi 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 Rabbi 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 centres in Europe prior to the Holocaust. North American cities have rarely had chief rabbis, although some do have them: Montreal, in fact, has two — one for the Ashkenazi community, the other for the Sephardi.

The Chief Rabbi's name is often followed by ABD, which stands for Av Beth Din.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Chief rabbis by country/region

[edit] Argentina

[edit] Ashkenazi

• Shlomo Ben Hamo

[edit] Sephardi

• Yosef Chehebar^[2]

[edit] Australia

See Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

[edit] Austria

• Akiva Eisenberg
• Paul Chaim Eisenberg

[edit] British Empire and Commonwealth

Main article: List of chief rabbis of the United Kingdom

• Judah Loeb Cohen — (1696-1700)
• Aaron the Scribe of Dublin — (1700-1704)
• Aaron Hart — (1704-1756)
• Hart Lyon — (1758-1764)
• David Tevele Schiff — (1765-1791)
• Solomon Hirschell — (1802-1842)
• Nathan Marcus Adler — (1845-1891)
• Hermann Adler — (1891-1911)
• Joseph Herman Hertz — (1913-1946)
• Sir Israel Brodie — (1948-1965)
• Lord Jakobovits — (1966-1991)
• Sir Jonathan Sacks — (1991–present)

[edit] Chile

• Angel Kreiman Brill — (1980-1998)
• Gad Mansour — (1998-1999)
• Roberto Feldman — (1999-Present)

[edit] Cuba

• Meir Rosenbaum — (Son of Rabbi Issamar of Nadvorna, Elected 1948: left Cuba in 1956, a little more than two years before Fidel Castro came to power in the Revolution)

[edit] Cyprus

• Arie Zeev Raskin — (2005-present) representing Chabad-Lubavitch

[edit] Egypt

• Chaim Nahum — (1909-1960)
• Haim Douek — (1960-1972)

[edit] Estonia

• Michael Alony — (1995-1996)
• Shmuel Kot — (2000-present)

[edit] Finland

• Michael Alony — (1995-1996)

[edit] France

• Jacob Kaplan — (1955-1981)
• René Samuel Sirat — (1981-1987)
• Joseph Sitruk — (1987-present)

[edit] Guatemala

• Meir Rosenbaum — (Son of Rabbi Issamar of Nadvorna, Later Chief Rabbi of Cuba)

[edit] Hungary

Note that this list is out of order.

• Meir Eisenstadt known as the Panim Me'iros (1708-), rabbi of Eisenstadt and author of "Panim Me'irot"
• Alexander ben Menahem
• Phinehas Auerbach
• Jacob Eliezer Braunschweig
• Hirsch Semnitz
• Simon Jolles — (1717-?)
• Samson Wertheimer — (1693?-1724)(also Eisenstadt and Moravia)
• Issachar Berush Eskeles — (1725-1753) ^[3]
• Joseph Hirsch Weiss — (Grandfather of Stephen Samuel Wise.)[1] [2]
• Samuel Kohn
• Ferenc Hevesi
• Moshe Kunitzer — (1828-1837), a pioneer of the Haskalah movement in Hungary.
• Alfréd Schöner
• Koppel Reich
• Chaim Yehuda Deutsch
• József Schweitzer

[edit] Iran

• Yedidiah Shofet
• Uriel Davidi
• Yousef Hamadani Cohen — (?-present)

[edit] Ireland

• Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog — (1921-1937)
• Immanuel Jakobovits — (1949-1958)
• Isaac Cohen — (1959-1979)
• David Rosen — (1979-1985)
• Gavin Broder — (1996-2000)
• Yaakov Pearlman — (2001–present)

[edit] Israel

Main article: Chief Rabbinate of Israel

The position of chief rabbi of the Land of Israel has existed for hundreds of years. During the mandatory period, the British recognized the chief Rabbis of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities, just as they recognized the Mufti of Jerusalem. the offices continued after stateehood was achieved. Haredi Jewish groups (such as Edah HaChareidis) do not recognize the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. They usually have their own rabbis who do not have any connection to the state rabbinate.

Please note that under current Israeli law, the post of Chief Rabbi exists in only four cities (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheba). In other cities there may be one main rabbi to whom the other rabbis of that city defer, but that post is not officially the "Chief Rabbi".

Many of Israel's chief rabbis were previously chief rabbis of Israeli cities.

[edit] Ashkenazi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog — (1948-1959) Isser Yehuda Unterman — (1964-1973) Shlomo Goren — (1973-1983) Avraham Shapira — (1983-1993) Yisrael Meir Lau — (1993-2003) Yona Metzger — (2003–present)

[edit] Sephardi Benzion Uziel — (1948-1954) Yitzhak Nissim — (1955-1973) Ovadia Yosef — (1973-1983) Mordechai Eliyahu — (1983-1993) Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron — (1993-2003) Shlomo Amar — (2003–present)

[edit] Military Rabbinate

• Shlomo Goren (1948-1968)
• Mordechai Peron (1968-1977)
• Gad Navon (1977-2000)
• Israel Weiss (2000-2006)
• Avichai Rontzki (2006-present)

[edit] Mandate of Palestine

[edit] Ashkenazi Meir Auerbach - Rabbi of Jerusalem (1860-1871)[4] Samuel Salant (1871-) [5] Abraham Isaac Kook — (1921-1935) Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog — (1936-1948)

[edit] Sephardi Jacob Meir — (1921-1939) Benzion Uziel — (1939-1948)

[edit] Lebanon

• Rabbi Danon — (1908-1909)
• Jacob Maslaton — (1910-1921)
• Salomon Tagger — (1921-1923)
• Shabtai Bahbout — (1924-1950)
• Benzion Lichtman — (1932-1959)
• Jacob Attiyeh — (1949-1966)
• Chaoud Chreim — (1960-1978)

[edit] Morocco

• Mardo Chee Bengio - click here for a letter written by Rav Bengio ^[6]
• Rabbi Mikail Encaoua
• Chalom Messas

[edit] Mexico

• Jacob Avigdor — (1952-1967)
• Shlomo Tawil — (1998–present)

[edit] Poland

See also: List of Polish Rabbis

• Ber Percowicz — (1945-1961)
• Uszer Zibes — (1961-1966)
• Zew Wawa Morejno — (1966-1973)
• Pinchas Menachem Joskowicz — (1988-1999)
• Michael Schudrich — (2004–present)

[edit] Russia

• Adolf Shayevich — (1983, officially since 1993-present)
• Berel Lazar — (2000-present) representing Chabad-Lubavitch

[edit] South Africa

• Louis Rabinowitz — (1945-1961)
• Bernard M. Casper
• Cyril Harris
• Warren Goldstein — (2005-present)

[edit] Thailand

• Yosef Kantor

[edit] United States

A chief Rabbinate never truly developed within the United States for a number of different reasons. While Jews first settled in what is now the US in the 1500s in the desert southwest, and 1654 in New Amsterdam, Rabbis did not appear in the United States until the mid-Nineteenth Century. This lack of Rabbis, coupled with the lack of official colonial or state recognition of a particular sect of Judaism as official (e.g. Ottolengui v. Ancker) effectively led to a form congregationalism amongst American Jews. This did not stop others from trying to create a unified American Judaism, and in fact, some chief Rabbis developed in some American cities despite lacking universal recognition amongst the Jewish communities within the cities (for examples see below). However, Jonathan Sarna argues that those two precedents, as well as the desire of many Jewish immigrants to the US to break from an Orthodox past, effectively prevented any effective Chief Rabbi in America.^[7]

[edit] Transylvania

Note: The chief rabbi of Transylvania was generally the rabbi of the city of Alba Iulia.

• Joseph Reis Auerbach — (d. 1750)
• Shalom Selig ben Saul Cohen — (1754-1757)
• Johanan ben Isaac — (1758-1760)
• Benjamin Ze'eb Wolf of Cracow — (1764-1777)
• Moses ben Samuel Levi Margaliot — (1778-1817)
• Menahem ben Joshua Mendel — (1818-23)
• Ezekiel Paneth — (1823-1843)
• Abraham Friedmann — (d. 1879), the last chief rabbi of Transylvania

[edit] Tunisia

• Chaim Madar — (1984-2004)

[edit] Turkey

See also: Hakham Bashi

• Shabbetai Levi — (1920-1922)
• Isaac Ariel — (1922-1926)
• Haim Bejerano — (1926-1931)
• Haim Isaac Saki — (1931-1940)
• Rafael David Saban — (1940-1960)
• David Asseo — (1961-2002)
• Ishak Haleva — (2003-present)

[edit] Uganda

• Gershom Sizomu (-present) (see:Abayudaya)

[edit] Ukraine

• Yaakov Dov Bleich - (1992-present) - original post-communism chief rabbi, still widely recognized Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and Kiev
• Alex Dukhovny - The Progressive (Liberal/Reform) Chief Rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine
• Azriel Haikin - (2003-present) - Chabad affiliated - not fully recognized as Ukraine Chief Rabbi, but heads the Ukrainian Chabad [3]
• Moshe Reuven Azman - (2005-present) - rabbi from Chabad, though elected mostly by secular Jewish leaders and not by any rabbinical authority [4]

[edit] Uruguay

• Nechemia Berman (1970-1993)

[edit] Venezuela

[edit] Ashkenazi Pynchas Brener

[edit] Sephardi Isaac Cohen

[edit] Chief rabbis by city

[edit] Amsterdam, the Netherlands

• Tzvi Ashkenazi
• Aryeh Ralbag

[edit] Antwerp, Belgium

• Chaim Kreiswirth — (1953-2001)

[edit] Baltimore, United States

• Abraham N. Schwartz — (d. 1934)
• Joseph H. Feldman — (retired 1972, d. 1992)

[edit] Birobidzhan, Russia

• Mordechai Scheiner — (2002 - present)

[edit] Budapest, Hungary

• Yonasan Steif, pre-World War Two

[edit] Caracas, Venezuela

[edit] Ashkenazi Isaac Cohén — ( –present)

[edit] Sephardi Pynchas Brener — ( –present)

[edit] Chicago, United States

• Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky known as the Ridbaz, served as chief rabbi of the Russian-American congregations in the city from 1903-1905.

[edit] Haifa, Israel

[edit] Ashkenazi She'ar Yashuv Cohen

[edit] Sephardi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron — (1975-1993)

[edit] Hebron, Israel

• Chaim Hezekiah Medini — (1891-1904)

[edit] Hoboken, United States

• Chaim Hirschensohn — (1904-1935). His post included Hoboken, Jersey City, Union Hill and the Environs. ^[8]

[edit] Hong Kong, China

• Jonathan Sacks

[edit] Jerusalem, Israel

[edit] Ashkenazi Meir Auerbach — (-1878) Shmuel Salant — (1878-1909) Chaim Berlin — (1909-1915)[citation needed] Tzvi Pesach Frank

[edit] Sephardi Jacob Saul Elyashar Jacob Meir

[edit] Leiden, the Netherlands

• Simon de Vries

[edit] Montreal, Canada

[edit] Ashkenazi Pinchas Hirschprung — (1969-1998) [9] Avraham David Niznik — (1998-2006) [9][10]

[edit] Sephardi David Sabbah [11]

[edit] Moscow, Russia

• Yakov Maze — (prior to 1924-1933)
• Shmarya Yehuda Leib Medalia — (1933-1938)
• Shmuel Leib Levin — (1943-1944)
• Shlomo Shleifer — (1944-1957)
• Yehuda Leib Levin — (1957-1972)
• Adolf Shayevich — (1983, officially since 1993-present)
• Pinchas Goldschmidt - (1987-present)

[edit] Munich, Germany

• Pinchos Biberfeld, moved back to Germany from where he had emigrated to Israel over 50 years earlier. (1980-1999)
• Steven Langnas, the first not German born (yet of German descent) Chief Rabbi and Av Beis Din of Munich — (1999-present)

[edit] New York City, United States

• Jacob Joseph was the only true Ashkenazi chief rabbi of New York City; there was never a Sephardi chief rabbi, although Dr. David DeSola Pool acted as a leader among the Sepharadim and was also respected as such. Others it has been said claimed the title of Chief Rabbi; eventually, the title became worthless through dilution.
• Yosef Yitzchok Parnes, the Brooklyner Rebbe, was also considered as such, arriving in Borough Park, Brooklyn in approximately 1913; due to the many non-observant Jews then working for the local utility companies, he did not use any electricity on the Sabbath. Many religious Jews in America in the early 1900s were his adherents.

[edit] Nové Zámky, Slovakia

• Dr. Ernest Klein — (1931-1944)

[edit] Rome, Italy

• Israel Zolli — (1940-1943)
• Elio Toaff — (1951-2002)
• Riccardo Di Segni — (2002-present)

[edit] Rotterdam, the Netherlands

• Josiyahu Pardo
• Arye Leib Breslau
• Dr. Joseph Isaacsohn
• Dr. Bernhard Löbel Ritter
• A.B.N. Davids
• Lou Vorst — (1945-1971)
• A. Hutterer
• Raphael Evers

[edit] St. Louis, Missouri

• Chaim Fischel Epstein
• Menachem Zvi Eichenstein 1943-1982
• Sholom Rivkin ^[12] ( -present)

[edit] Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

[edit] Sephardi

• Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel — (1911-1939)
• Ovadia Yosef — (1968-1973)
• Hayim David HaLevi — (1973-1998?)

[edit] Vienna, Austria

• Paul Chaim Eisenberg

[edit] Warsaw, Poland

• Pinchas Menachem Joskowicz — (1988-1999)
• Michael Schudrich — (2004–present)

[edit] Zurich, Switzerland

• Mordechai Piron

[edit] References

1. ^ Rabbi Ovadia Yosef And His Culture War In Israel
2. ^ Jewish Travel Advisor
3. ^ Personality of the week: Issachar Berush Eskeles. Beit Hatefutsot.
4. ^ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jspartid=2123&letter=A&search=auerbach?
5. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D04E3D6173EE733A25754C1A96E9C946897D6CF
6. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B02EFDD173EE733A25753C1A9609C946797D6CF
7. ^ Jonathan Sarna, 'American Judaism: A History', New Haven: Yale University Pres, 2004.
8. ^ Title page of Malki Ba-Kodesh, vol. 2; Hoboken, 1921
9. ^ ^{a b} Bnei Brak rabbi named to new beit din post
10. ^ The Yeshiva World - Frum Jewish News
11. ^ Grand Rabbinat du Québec
12. ^ Meet Rabbi Moshe P. Weisblum

[edit] External links

• Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth