Yes! A rabbi who can win the respect of all rabbis? Yes! A rabbi who can rule authoritatively on Jewish laws and practice. A rabbi who does not apologize for having an opinion. A rabbi, centered on the truth of Torah, who does not equivocate on such fundamentals as G-d the creator, Torah from Sinai, the chosen people and final redemption and sacred customs. A rabbi who will stand before the world and present moral clarity as only a Torah scholar can, with authority like an “older brother in faith,” and say that jihad is forbidden by G-d and celibacy is not “kosher” for any descendant of Noah. A rabbi who can tell world leaders that the land of Israel belongs to Jews forever and that retaliation or preemptive strikes are a moral obligation. A Jewish leader who is never ashamed of his people, who will defend every Jew and believe in every Jew.
To have such a chief rabbi would be heavenly. I would vote for him not only as chief rabbi of the USA, but of the world. I would sit at his feet and learn. But, if we don’t have such a person, we probably should not create an office that we cannot fill.
Rabbi Manis Friedman
Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies
St. Paul, MN
Modern Orthodox
The idea of a chief rabbi is an illusion of a unified community. Where the office exists, no one is satisfied. In Israel, the position has been stained by protektsia and payoffs in the selection methods and by incumbents’ personal corruption and embarrassing behavior. In addition to being largely irrelevant, Israel’s chief rabbis have been typically indifferent to the country’s moral crises and/or reactionary on such issues as women’s equality, treatment of foreign workers and Arabs, or gay rights.
The office generally exists where the Orthodox are in control and the government ignores or mistreats the non-Orthodox (as in the former Soviet Union.) England’s distinguished chief rabbi has won national recognition as a spiritual leader, but, hobbled by Orthodox disrespect for liberal Jews and pressured by the haredim, he has alienated Masorti and Reform Jews.
Another approach, exemplified by the Pope, shows how a respected religious figure’s statements can send a powerful signal of the Church’s relevance as a guide to life. Similarly, we need a spokesperson, a Chief Moral Operating Officer of American Jewry, who could articulate authentic Jewish opinion on the great moral and religious issues of the day. (For one brief shining moment—marching to Selma—Abraham Joshua Heschel attained this status.)
However, we would need some broadly based selection process, and I cannot conceive of a plausible scenario for such a process. Without a great transformation to unite the community, I can only say, dream on!
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg
New York, NY
Sephardi
Traditional Judaism does not subscribe to the notion of a grand, Pope-like spiritual leader who possesses absolute authority in religious matters. On the contrary, Jewish legal decisions are based on knowledge, painstaking analysis and reasoned argument. A competent, scholarly rabbi who disagrees with a colleague is not permitted to defer to him simply because the colleague holds a higher rank. The truth trumps all other considerations.
This being said, a chief rabbinate can unify the practice and standards of an observant, homogeneous Jewish community. However, in pluralistic and multidenominational settings, a chief rabbinate would be divisive and ineffective. An Orthodox chief rabbi would not be viewed as a religious authority by members of more liberal movements, and Orthodox Jews would be skeptical were the chief rabbi Conservative or Reform. Sephardic Jews worldwide already look to the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel for leadership and guidance, so they would be uninterested from the outset.
Although we should aspire to the ideal of unity, creating a U.S. office of the chief rabbinate would exacerbate the tensions that already plague American Jewish life.
Rabbi Joshua Maroof
Magen David Sephardic Congregation
Rockville, MD
Conservative
American democracy, from its inception, has favored cultural norms that embrace a plurality of voices and champion tolerance and diversity. Although it is axiomatic that the Jewish religion is predicated on God’s commandment, it is equally fundamental, and by this point instinctive, that American Jews proactively choose individual rabbis as teachers. Jews’ alignment with particular communities and openness to the teaching and leadership of particular rabbis generates dynamism and energy within American Jewish life and stimulates the creation of new vehicles for transmitting our eternal tradition.
I imagine that the institution of one chief rabbi would stifle rather than spur Jewish involvement. The question we should keep before us is not how we might institute the office of chief rabbi and what that rabbi’s powers might be, but how we might realize a vision for a maximally engaged Jewish polity in the United States. Our tradition imagines rabbis who lead by example, igniting Jews’ religious consciousness and strengthening their ties to the community.
We must optimally leverage diversity in our community to create the highest level of Jewish participation and connection, rather than attempt to impose unity from the top. This is the kind of leadership that all our rabbis must demonstrate to ensure the future of the Jewish people.
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld
Director of Rabbinic Development
The Rabbinical Assembly
New York, NY
Reform
No. The United States represents the greatest example of freedom of religion in the contemporary world, perhaps even in our people’s history. American religious groups already have their own clear channels of leadership. Because no single denomination is “primary,” various Jewish worldviews are developed in a broad national forum that fosters healthy innovation, reflection and dialogue. The institution of one authoritative chief rabbi risks limiting the potential for constructive dialogue among various expressions of American Judaism.
One need only look to the countries in which chief rabbis operate today to see the pain and suffering possible with an American chief rabbinate. In Israel, for example, the chief rabbinate disenfranchises Jews who do not accept a monolithic hard-line Orthodox outlook; it denies the rights of converts who make aliyah; it disappoints those desiring meaningful Jewish weddings and burials; it degrades women who seek ordination and divorces; and it diverts funding for alternative forms of education and synagogue life that could help Israeli Jewish life flower in new and positive ways.
One might argue that a chief rabbi could be a symbol of unity for the American Jewish community. But a chief rabbinate is far better in the ideal than it ever could be were it real.
Rabbi Aaron Panken
Vice President, Hebrew Union College
Jewish Institute of Religion
Cincinnati, OH
Reconstructionist
No. Pluralism is the American Jewish community’s great strength. With limited views, no one sees the whole truth, including those truths embodied by each movement represented on these pages.
In 1888 Jacob Joseph became New York’s nominal chief rabbi, a failed position replaced by a democratic community organization. The New York Kehillah’s education director, Mordechai Kaplan, founded Reconstructionist Judaism in 1922 when the Kehillah folded. As a philosopher, Kaplan reconciled rabbinic rule with republican democracy.
We diaspora Jews are always influenced by, and influence, our host communities. American Judaism should and does look different, internalizing ideas like balance-of-power, individualism, and “melting pots” or “tossed salads”—notions opposed to chief anybodies, much less rabbis (“two Jews, three views!”).
A chief rabbinate works miserably in Israel, where unelected ultra-rabbis have lately exercised capricious leadership. It works tolerably in Europe and elsewhere, where wise and good men occupy untenable positions, representing only those Jews within their orbits.
However, an inclusive pluralistic rabbis’ group, with rotating leadership, should guide—but not govern. It should offer high-level analysis of, and recommendations for, our community. Some of that does happen (via the late Synagogue Council and federation and community relations groups), but more is needed.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation
Bethesda, MD
Renewal
It is almost impossible to imagine a chief rabbi who could fairly represent the diverse, engaged U.S. Jewish population. It is also unclear that anyone holding the title could carry significant authority, because our diversity would likely prevent a sufficiently inclusive selection process. Under the circumstances, having a chief rabbi would only add to our divisiveness.
However, suppose we assume that we had developed a situation where the question is real. What would it look like?
First, we would be speaking with one another with mutual respect and recognize that our differences are matters of emphasis rather than label them as truth versus heresy. Second, we would be looking for a chief rabbi who commanded the respect of a large majority—a rabbi who could speak with and for that diversity of opinion and focus that marks the richness of our Jewish life. Third, we would have achieved consensus about the outlines of our purpose as Jews in the world, both as individuals and as a people.
But then, I think it highly unlikely that we would need a chief rabbi!
Rabbi Daniel Siegel
Director of Spiritual Resources
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Philadelphia, PA
Humanist
Years ago at Purim I pulled out my rabbinic robe, long-relegated to the closet, and donned a headdress of feathers, posing perhaps a bit irreverently, as a Native American. When asked who I was, I said, “I’m the chief rabbi of New York.”
If that was silly, the possibility of a chief rabbi of the United States is more fanciful, and also undesirable and unrealistic. Not just in America, but also around the globe, we are many Jewish cultures with a range of practices, beliefs and identifications. No one rabbi, or lay leader for that matter, could possibly inspire or represent all of us. Just consider the noisy dissent when any Jewish organization purports to express the Jewish position on any matter.
Our multiple voices must be expressed, not just within the Jewish community, but also within our country. However, in the U.S. public square, the largest minority—secularists—is often unacknowledged, if not condemned. Hopefully, President Barack Obama will build bridges to this community, too.
Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer
The City Congregation
for Humanistic Judaism
New York, NY
Independent
A chief rabbinate has existed historically to link governmental authority and the Jewish community. However, in the United States, rabbinical organizations issue declarations on religious law and practice for their particular constituencies. A myriad of secular organizations also join with rabbinical organizations in the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to address critical issues.
At times, individuals were “tapped” to serve unsuccessfully in a chief rabbinate capacity. For example, Rabbi Stephen Wise was FDR’s official authority on Jewish affairs. Tragically, Rabbi Wise failed to convince FDR of the impending Holocaust.
From 1961 to 1962 when I was rabbi of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation, a chief rabbi of Ireland had forbidden burial of congregation members in the community cemetery and attempted to prevent their purchasing land for their own.
A chief rabbinate does not represent multiple facets of Jewish religious life and wouldn’t meet the needs of American Jewry.
Rabbi Harold S. White
Senior Jewish Chaplain
Georgetown University, Washington, DCDCDC
