Shlomo Amar

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Rabbi Shlomo Amar

Rabbi Shlomo Amar (1948 - ) is the current Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, appointed in 2003. His colleague is Rabbi Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Rabbi Amar was born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1962 at age 14. He is a close associate of the spiritual leader of the Shas Party and former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Before his appointment as co-Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Amar had served as the head of the Petah Tikva Rabbinical Court. He was elected chief rabbi of Tel Aviv in 2002, the first sole Chief Rabbi of the city.

Amar has the distinction of being the first Chief Sephardic Rabbi of modern Israel who is not of Iraqi origin.

1 Work With Lost Tribes
2 Civil Marriage Proposal
3 2005 Kidnapping Scandal
4 Amending the Law of Return
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] Work With Lost Tribes

In 2002, Amar was sent by then Interior Minister Eli Yishai to Ethiopia to meet with the Falash Mura community, a group of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity. He subsequently recommended that they undergo an Orthodox conversion to Judaism, which provoked an angry reaction. Later in 2003, as Chief Rabbi, he reversed himself, saying that anyone related to a member of Beta Israel through matrilineal descent qualified as Jewish and should be brought to Israel by the government (and then undergo a formal conversion ceremony after a period of study). In January 2004, following the recommendations of the Knesset and the Chief Rabbis, Ariel Sharon announced a plan (still largely unimplemented) to bring all of the Falash Mura (presently close to 18,000) to Israel by the end of 2007. [1]

In May 2005, Amar publicly accepted the claims of the Indian Bnei Menashe as one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. He sent a Bet Din to India in September to begin the conversion process. [2], [3]

[edit] Civil Marriage Proposal

Amar made news in September 2005 when he told a Shinui MK that he was willing to support civil marriages for non-Jews and people who have no religion. Amar pointed out the difference between his idea and that of his predecessor, Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, who had proposed civil marriage for anyone interested in 2004. Amar's plan, by comparison, would only apply to the marriage of non-Jews with each other. Amar stated that his suggestion was designed to solve the problem of Israel's 300,000 religionless, non-Jewish immigrants, many from the former Soviet Union who claim Jewish identity and citizenship, but whose Jewish status may not be accepted by Orthodox standards and the Chief Rabbinate. Amar called on representatives of the non-Jewish immigrants to discuss the matter with representatives of the rabbinate. [4]

[edit] 2005 Kidnapping Scandal

In May 2005, Rabbi Amar's family was accused of kidnapping and beating a Haredi 17-year-old who was dating Amar's daughter, which is considered highly inappropriate for Orthodox teenagers. The youth claimed that Rabbi Amar had direct knowledge of the incident, which occurred first in an Israeli Arab village and then moved to the Amar home, and was partially responsible for planning the kidnapping, which was carried out by his 31-year-old son Meir Amar [5], [6]. Police evidence confirmed that the Rabbi was in the home at the same time as the captive boy. Amar claimed that he had been asleep at the time and disavowed all knowledge of the incident. Rabbi Amar was repeatedly questioned but not charged with any wrongdoing [7]. Meir was convicted of kidnapping, abuse of a minor, illegal confinement, extortion, threats, and causing bodily harm. He was sentenced in January, 2006 to 32 months in prison and a 35,000 shekel fine. Rabbi Amar pledged to try to help the anonymous youth re-integrate into yeshiva life, something analysts have suggested may be near-impossible after the case being so highly publicized.

[edit] Amending the Law of Return

In November 2006, Rabbi Amar submitted a draft bill to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that would remove the conversion clause from the Israeli Law of Return. This would prevent converts from all streams of Judaism, including Orthodox Judaism, from having automatic citizenship rights in Israel, and restrict the Law of Return to applying only to Jews by birth whose mothers were Jewish.[8], [9] This also affects potential immigrants who are descended from only one Jewish parent or grandparent, not all of whom would be accepted as Jewish by Orthodox halakha- see Matrilineal descent and Who is a Jew?

Rabbi Amar said in interviews that the bill was designed to prevent "a situation where there are two peoples in the State of Israel". Rabbi Amar claimed that the Law of Return's inclusion of converts had turned the conversion process into a political rather than religious exercise, and that many people were converting for immigration purposes, not out of sincere religiosity. Amar suggested that an alternative could be that converts, upon arriving in Israel, went through a naturalization process via the Citizenship Law. The bill also gives rabbinic courts and the Chief Rabbinate sole authority over conversions.

Rabbi Amar said that the bill was partially written in response to the Israeli Supreme Court deliberating a dozen petitions by the Israeli Reform movement to allow Reform converts to stay in Israel. Jews converted under Reform or Conservative auspices abroad have been accepted under the Law of Return since 1989, but the 2006 case deals with conversions that occurred in Israel. Amar argued that if the Reform converts were permitted to stay in the country, they would eventually become frustrated with their inability to marry Jews (as the Chief Rabbinate would not recognize their conversions as valid) and this would lead to them marrying non-Jews, which would polarize the state.

Rabbi Amar received some criticism from the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel and America, and various Israeli politicians and government figures, including Menachem Mazuz, Yossi Beilin, and UTJ MK Avraham Ravitz, who said he did not believe Amar's bill, if passed, would stop Reform or Conservative converts from receiving citizenship, which would lead back to the initial problem of "two peoples" in Israel. He added that Amar's proposed bill would constitute blatant discrimination against converts.[10] Other commentators noted that the citizenship process for non-Jews can be long and arduous, and pointed out that there are presently many naturalized Israelis, particularly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who do not meet the halakhic definition of a Jew. One report, challenging Amar's claim that his bill was meant as a preventative measure, wrote, "The “division of the Jewish people in Israel” is a present reality, not a future possibility."[11]

However, some in Israel's legal community supported separating religious conversion from the secular citizenship process. Amar also received support from several religious politicians such as NRP MK Zevulun Orlev who said the bill would protect Jewish unity. [12]