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Chief rabbi 

Contents

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

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

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Chief rabbis by country/region

Flag of Argentina Argentina

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Flag of Austria Austria

Flag of the United Kingdom British Empire and Commonwealth

Main article: List of chief rabbis of the United Kingdom

Flag of Chile Chile

Flag of Cuba Cuba

Flag of Cyprus Cyprus

Flag of Egypt Egypt

Flag of Estonia Estonia

Flag of Finland Finland

Flag of France France

Flag of Guatemala Guatemala

Flag of Hungary 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) [6]
  • 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

Flag of Iran Iran

Flag of Ireland Ireland

Flag of Israel 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 statehood 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.

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Military Rabbinate

Mandate of Palestine

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Flag of Lebanon Lebanon

Flag of Morocco Morocco

Flag of Mexico Mexico

shlomo tawil (1998/present)

Flag of Poland Poland

See also: List of Polish Rabbis

Flag of Russia Russia

Flag of South Africa South Africa

Flag of Thailand Thailand

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.[10]

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

Flag of Tunisia Tunisia

Flag of Turkey Turkey

See also: Hakham Bashi

Flag of Uganda Uganda

Flag of Ukraine Ukraine

Flag of Uruguay Uruguay

Flag of Venezuela Venezuela

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Chief rabbis by city

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Antwerp, Belgium

Baltimore, United States

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

Birobidzhan, Russia

Budapest, Hungary

Caracas, Venezuela

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

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.

Haifa, Israel

Ashkenazi

  • She'ar Yashuv Cohen

Sephardi

Hebron, Israel

Hoboken, United States

Hong Kong, China

Jerusalem, Israel

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Edah HaChareidis

Note: The Edah HaChareidis is unaffiliated with the State of Israel. It is a separate, independent religious community with its own Chief Rabbis, who are viewed, in the Haredi world, as being the Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem.

Leiden, the Netherlands

Montreal, Canada

Ashkenazi

Sephardi

Moscow, Russia

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)

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.

Nové Zámky, Slovakia

Rome, Italy

Rotterdam, the Netherlands

St. Louis, Missouri

Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

Sephardi

Vienna, Austria

Warsaw, Poland

Zurich, Switzerland

References

  1. ^ Rabbi Ovadia Yosef And His Culture War In Israel
  2. ^ Jewish Travel Advisor
  3. ^ Rabbis of Chilean Masorti Forum meet with Mr. Zeev Bielsky Masorti World
  4. ^ The Virtual Jewish History Tour Cuba Jewish Virtual Library
  5. ^ The Jewish Traveler: Havana Hadassah Magazine
  6. ^ "Personality of the week: Issachar Berush Eskeles". Beit Hatefutsot.
  7. ^ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jspartid=2123&letter=A&search=auerbach?
  8. ^ CHIEF RABBI SALANT DIES IN JERUSALEM; Head of the Ashkanezic Congregat... - Article Preview - The New York Times
  9. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B02EFDD173EE733A25753C1A9609C946797D6CF
  10. ^ Jonathan Sarna, 'American Judaism: A History', New Haven: Yale University Pres, 2004.
  11. ^ Title page of Malki Ba-Kodesh, vol. 2; Hoboken, 1921
  12. ^ a b Bnei Brak rabbi named to new beit din post
  13. ^ The Yeshiva World - Frum Jewish News
  14. ^ Grand Rabbinat du Québec
  15. ^ Meet Rabbi Moshe P. Weisblum

External links
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