Religion: New Rabbis for Israel

The two chief rabbis of Israel are among the most powerful men in that country—and indeed in world Judaism. One is the spiritual leader for Israel's Ashkenazic Jews, the other the religious master of the nation's Sephardic Jews.* Each is entrusted with the complex and often controversial task of ruling on Halakhah—Jewish religious law —for his people. In Israel, where rabbinical authorities totally control such matters as marriage and divorce for Jews and influence their behavior in many phases of public life, the rulings are often critical to the very functioning of society....

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