Abraham Isaac Kook

The Russian-born Jewish scholar Abraham Isaac Kuk (1865-1935), or Kook, was the first chief rabbi of Palestine, now Israel. He was noted for his Talmudic knowledge and his extraordinary love of his people.

Born in northwestern Russia into a famous rabbinical family, Abraham Kuk received an intensive Talmudic education in his native city of Grieve. At 15 years of age, already recognized as a prodigy, he went to Lutzin, where he continued his studies not only as an intellectual pursuit but as an act of piety. He later studied in the famous academy of Volozin.

Kuk's personal outlook led him to espouse the Musar (personal piety) movement and to employ Hebrew instead of Yiddish for daily use. He saw no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular and insisted that the most menial tasks are replete with religious overtones. He continued to study after his marriage and did not hesitate to include German philosophy and modern Hebrew literature in his curriculum. His fame grew as an expert in Jewish law, and he was given the title of gaon (excellency).

Financial need led Kuk to accept a rabbinical post in Zimmel and later in Boisk, where he remained until 1904, when he became rabbi in Jaffa, Palestine. He included German culture and Cabala in his spectrum of studies and began to write extensively in the areas of Jewish law and thought. His devotion to orthodoxy was not compromised, and he succeeded in gaining the recognition of both the orthodox and the modernists. He embraced the Zionist movement without reservation and saw in it no contradiction to traditional Judaism. While many Zionists were secularists, Kuk insisted that regardless of their indifference to religious rites they were doing God's work in the only land in which the Jewish people could fulfill its mission.

When Kuk came to Palestine, he mingled freely with the colonists, who accepted him warmly because of his fluent use of Hebrew and because of his deep sympathy with their problems. He insisted that all Jews must work together. He sought to encourage the use of Palestine products, especially for ritual purposes. He lectured widely in the academies, and he insisted on adding a daily discourse on the Kuzari (a medieval philosophical work) to the lecture on the Talmud.

The start of World War I found Kuk in Europe, and he could not leave until it was over. He employed his time in the furtherance of Zionist aims and in the issuance of the Balfour Declaration (1917), in which England assured the Jews of its favorable attitude toward the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He returned to the Holy Land and organized the Banner of Jerusalem movement in support of Judaism in Palestine. He became chief rabbi of Jerusalem in 1919 and 2 years later chief rabbi of Palestine.

Kuk's incumbency coincided with the initial growth of the Jewish community, which eventually achieved its independence in 1948. He sought to pave the way for this historic event by breaking down barriers between groups. Many extremists refused to recognize his authority, but he won the admiration of the masses, for whom he had a great affection. He could find no reason for not being a Zionist, "seeing that the Lord has chosen Zion." Kuk wrote articles and brochures on a wide range of subjects; some were published during his lifetime and many posthumously. His poetry was beautiful and tender and his excursus into the realm of mysticism most elevating.

Further Reading

Jacob B. Agus, Banner of Jerusalem: The Life, Times and Thought of Abraham Isaac Kuk, the Late Chief Rabbi of Palestine (1946), is a full-length biography. Agus also wrote a sketch of Kuk in Simon Noveck, ed., Great Jewish Thinkers of the Twentieth Century (1963).

Kook immigrated to Erets Israel in 1904 to become the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa and rapidly became involved in the developing Jewish community. He visited new agricultural settlements both to encourage and praise their pioneering efforts and to seek to influence their return to a religious way of life. Kook's identification with the Zionist movement alienated some of the country's oldtime rabbinical leaders. With the approach of the Sabbatical Year of 5670 (1909/1910), which posed a problem for the agricultural pioneers, Kook issued a lenient ruling permitting the nominal sale of the land to Muslims, in which he was opposed by R. Jacob David Willowsky of Safed. Since then the Chief Rabbinate in Israel has continued to abide by this ruling. In 1914 Kook traveled to Europe to participate in the planned conference of the recently organized ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel, which he hoped to influence towards Zionism. With the outbreak of World War I, Kook was stranded in Europe, making his home first in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and in 1916 becoming the rabbi of London's Maḥzikei ha-Dat synagogue.

He returned to Palestine in 1919 to assume the post of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. With the organization of the Chief Rabbinate in 1921, Kook was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine. He became the guiding spirit of the new institution, viewing it as a major stage towards Jewish self-government and ultimately the restoration of the Sanhedrin. This innovation antagonized the oldtime rabbinical leaders and they intensified their efforts to preserve the traditional patterns of rabbinical authority. In 1921, Kook founded a yeshivah (talmudic academy) in Jerusalem which was to be Zionism-oriented and universal in its outlook and curriculum of studies. This yeshivah became known as Merkaz ha-Rav ("the Rabbi's Center") in honor of its founder.

Kook's uniqueness lay in his ability to synthesize many different perspectives within his own outlook. He was a Lithuanian-trained rabbinic scholar of the old school, a deeply religious mystic who took an active interest in human affairs, an advocate of the study of secular sciences to complement Torah study, and an active Zionist who bridged the worlds of both its religious and secular elements. Kook was also a prolific author; while not constructing a comprehensive system of his thought and philosophy, his writings nevertheless reflect his personal insights, mystical reflections, and manifold interests. Among his speculative and philosophic writings are Orot, Orot ha-Kodesh, and Orot ha-Teshuvah. His correspondence was published under the title of Iggeret ha-Re'ayah, and his Novellae and Responsa were published on the four divisions of the Shulḥan Arukh code. Kook also wrote Halakhah Berurah, a commentary on the Talmud which stressed its interrelationship with Jewish law and attempted to bridge talmudic theory with halakhic practice.

Kook, Tsevi Yehudah (1891-1982), yeshivah head and spiritual father of the Gush Emunim ("Bloc of the Faithful") religious-nationalist movement that spearheaded Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria after the 1967 Six-Day War. The only son of Abraham Isaac Kook, he came to Erets Israel with his parents in 1904. He assisted his father in the administration of the Merkaz ha-Rav yeshivah, succeeding him as co-head of the institution after his death. Viewed as the heir to his father's philosophy and method in education, Kook influenced hundreds of students from all segments of the Israeli population. His emphasis on Zionism and the spiritual dimensions of the State of Israel made his yeshivah unique among such institutions.

Kook published numerous articles dealing with halakhic and philosophic attitudes towards contemporary events. He also devoted himself to editing and publishing many of his father's manuscripts.

1865 - 1935

Religious Zionist theoretician.

Born in Latvia, Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook received his early education was in the local cheder (Jewish day school). His father was a scholar who gave him a great love for Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. He then studied privately with several well-known Jewish scholars and, later, in the yeshiva in Volozhin. In addition to the traditional Talmud, he studied literature, philosophy, and kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), during his young adult years; he also began writing on Talmudic literature, philosophy, and poetry. He served as a rabbi in Lithuania from 1888 to 1904 and immigrated to Palestine in 1904, where he was appointed rabbi of Jaffa. His enthusiastic support of Zionism, which he perceived as part of messianic redemption, antagonized much of the rabbinic leadership, whose members opposed, on religious grounds, both the notion and the movement. In 1914, he traveled to Europe and, prevented from returning by the outbreak of World War I, assumed the temporary position of rabbi in a London congregation; there he also attempted to establish a movement for spiritual renewal, Degel Yerushalayim (Flag of Jerusalem), which was to supplement the secular Zionist movement. He returned to Palestine after the war, was appointed chief rabbi of Jerusalem and, when Palestine's rabbinate was established in 1921, he was selected as the Ashkenazic chief rabbi.

Kook's personal warmth and his interaction with all Jews, regardless of their degree of religiosity, as well as his attribution of holiness to all participants in the Zionist endeavor, became legendary and won him admiration even among the most secular Zionists; they mistook his individual acceptance of them as acceptance of their secularism in principle, however. Although firmly entrenched in traditional learning, he was also well versed in modern Western thought. He manifested simultaneously the sensitivity of the mystic and the intellectual sharpness that took cognizance of the rational. As a communal rabbi, he was attuned to contemporary difficulties and attempted to accommodate his rabbinic decisions to both his interpretation of religio-legal decision making and the contemporary situation. This was, at times, another source of tension in his relations with various Orthodox Jewish sects. Another manifestation of his relatively modern perspective was his view of higher Jewish education. He established a school, the yeshiva Merkaz ha-Rav, which was unique in its incorporation of Bible studies and Jewish thought with traditional Talmudic studies, to promote a deep commitment to Zionism. The yeshiva was small and remained so after his death, when it was headed by his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, and his son-in-law, Rabbi Shalom Natan Raʿanan. It became a major institution only after the Arab - Israel War of June 1967.

Kook's voluminous writings are available in Hebrew, but only a few have been translated into English.

Bibliography

Kook, Abraham Isaac. Lights of Holiness; The Lights of Penitence;The Moral Principles; Essays, Letters, and Poems, translated by Ben Zion Bokser. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.

Kook, Abraham Isaac. Rav A. Y. Kook: Selected Letters, translated by Tsvi Feldman. Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel: Ma'aliot Publications of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe, 1986.

Metzger, Alter B. Z. Rabbi Kook's Philosophy of Penitence. New York, 1968.

— CHAIM I. WAXMAN

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Abraham Isaac Kook in 1924

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar. He is known in Hebrew as הרב אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, and by the acronym HaRaAYaH or simply as "HaRav." He was one of the most celebrated and influential Rabbis of the 20th century.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Legacy 3 Resources 3.1 Writings 3.2 Translation and Commentary 3.3 Analysis 3.4 Biography 3.5 Quotes 4 See also 5 External links

Biography

Rav Kook was born in Grīva, Latvia (now part of Daugavpils, then a town in Courland Governorate of Imperial Russia) in 1865, the oldest of eight children. His father, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ha-Cohen Kook, was a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, the "mother of the Lithuanian yeshivas", whereas his maternal grandfather was a member of the Kapust dynasty of the Hassidic movement.

As a child he gained a reputation of being an ilui (prodigy). He entered the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1884 at the age of 18, where he became close to the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv). Although he stayed at the yeshiva for only a year and a half, the Netziv has been quoted as saying that if the Volozhin Yeshiva had been founded just to educate Rav Kook, it would have been worthwhile. During his time in the yeshiva, he studied about 18 hours a day.

In 1886, Kook married Batsheva, the daughter of Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim, (also known as the Aderet), the rabbi of Ponevezh (today's Panevėžys, Lithuania) and later Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem. In 1887, at the age of 23, Kook entered his first rabbinical position as rabbi of Zaumel, Lithuania. In 1888, his wife died, and his father-in-law convinced him to marry her cousin, Raize-Rivka, the daughter of the Aderet's twin brother. In 1895 Kook became the rabbi of Bausk (now Bauska). Between 1901 and 1904, he published three articles which anticipate the fully-developed philosophy which he developed in the Land of Israel. During these years he wrote a number of works, most published posthumously, most notably a lengthy commentary on the Aggadot of Tractates Berakhot and Shabbat, titled 'Eyn Ayah' and a brief but powerful book on morality and spirituality, titled 'Mussar Avikhah'.

In 1904, Rav Kook moved to Ottoman Palestine to assume the rabbinical post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new mostly secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. His influence on people in different walks of life was already noticeable, as he engaged in kiruv ("Jewish outreach"), thereby creating a greater role for Torah and Halakha in the life of the city and the nearby settlements.

The outbreak of the First World War caught Rav Kook in Europe, and he was forced to remain in London and Switzerland for the remainder of the war. In 1916, he became rabbi of the Spitalfields Great Synagogue (Machzike Hadath, "upholders of the law"), an immigrant Orthodox community located in Brick Lane, Whitechapel. Upon returning, he was appointed the Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem, and soon after, as first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1921. Kook founded a yeshiva, Mercaz HaRav Kook (popularly known as "Mercaz haRav"), in Jerusalem in 1924. He was a master of Halakha in the strictest sense, while at the same time possessing an unusual openness to new ideas. This drew many religious and non­religious people to him, but also led to widespread misunderstanding of his ideas. He wrote prolifically on both Halakha and Jewish thought, and his books and personality continued to influence many even after his death in Jerusalem in 1935.

Kook built bridges of communication and political alliances between the various Jewish sectors, including the secular Jewish Zionist leadership, the Religious Zionists, and more traditional non-Zionist Orthodox Jews. He believed that the modern movement to re-establish a Jewish state in the land of Israel had profound theological significance and that the Zionists were agents in a heavenly plan to bring about the messianic era. Per this ideology, the youthful, secular and even anti-religious Labor Zionist pioneers, halutzim, were a part of a grand Divine process whereby the land and people of Israel were finally being redeemed from the 2,000-year exile (galut) by all manner of Jews who sacrificed themselves for the cause of building up the physical land, as laying the groundwork for the ultimate spiritual messianic redemption of world Jewry. He once commented that the establishment of the Chief Rabbinate was the first step towards the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin.

His empathy towards the anti-religious elements aroused the suspicions of his more traditionalist haredi opponents, particularly that of the traditional rabbinical establishment that had functioned from the time of Turkey's control of greater Palestine, whose paramount leader was Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rav Kook's greatest rabbinical rival. Kook once quoted a rabbinic axiom that "one should embrace with the right hand and rebuff with the left". He remarked that he was fully capable of rejecting, but since there were enough rejecters, he was fulfilling the role of embracer. However, Kook was critical of the secularists on certain occasions when they went "too far" in desecrating the Torah, for instance, by not observing the Sabbath or kosher laws.Rav Kook also opposed the secular spirit of the Hatikvah anthem, and penned another anthem with a more religious theme entitled haEmunah.

Rav Kook's son, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, was his father's succesor as head of the yeshiva he founded after his passing in 1935.

Legacy

Abraham Isaac Kook hadwriting

While Rabbi Kook is exalted as one of the most important thinkers in mainstream Religious Zionism, he was close to what is now called Hardal. Indeed, there are several prominent quotes in which Kook is quite critical of the more modern-orthodox Religious Zionists (Mizrachi), whom he saw as naive and perhaps hypocritical in attempting to synthesize traditional Judaism with a modern and largely secular ideology. Kook never shied away from criticizing his peers, religious and secular, as well as the increasingly cloistered traditionalists living in the Holy Land, whose way of life he characterized as being similarly affected by the negative and abnormal conditions of the Jewish exile, and therefore just as "inauthentic" as that of their Zionist counterparts. Kook was interested in outreach and cooperation between different groups and types of Jews, and saw both the good and bad in each of them. His sympathy for them as fellow Jews and desire for Jewish unity should not be misinterpreted as any inherent endorsement of all their ideas. That said, Rav Kook's willingness to engage in joint-projects (for instance, his participation in the Chief Rabbinate) with the secular Zionist leadership must be seen as differentiating him from many of his traditionalist peers. In terms of practical results, it would not be incorrect to characterize Kook as being a Zionist, believing in the re-establishment of the Jewish people as a nation in their ancestral homeland. Unlike other Zionist leaders, however, Kook's motivations were purely based on Jewish law and Biblical prophecy. His sympathy towards the Zionist movement can be seen as a major stepping-stone to the Religious Zionist movement gaining momentum and legitimacy after his death.

The Israeli moshav Kfar Haroeh, founded in 1933, was named after Kook, "Haroah" being a Hebrew acronym for "HaRav Avraham HaCohen". His son Zvi Yehuda Kook, who was also his most prominent student, took over teaching duties at Mercaz HaRav after his death, and dedicated his life to disseminating his father's philosophy. Rav Kook's writings and philosophy eventually gave birth to the Hardal Religious Zionist movement which is today led by rabbis who studied under Rav Kook's son at Mercaz HaRav

Resources

Writings

• Ayin Aiyah, Commentary on Ayin Yaakov the Aggadic sections of the Talmud.
• Igorot HaRaiyah, The Collected Letters of Rav Kook.
• Olat Raiyah, Commentary on the Siddur.
• Orot - translation Bezalel Naor, Jason Aronson 1993. ISBN 1-56821-017-5
• Orot HaKodesh
• Orot ha-teshuvah - translation Ben-Zion Metzger, Bloch Pub. Co., 1968. ASIN B0006DXU94

Translation and Commentary

• (translation), Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, The Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems, Paulist Press 1978. ISBN 0-8091-2159-X [Includes complete English translations of Orot ha-Teshuva ("The Lights of Penitence"), Musar Avicha ("The Moral Principles"), as well as selected translations from Orot ha-Kodesh ("The Lights of Holiness") and miscellaneous essays, letters, and poems.]
• Samson, David; Tzvi Fishman (1996). Lights Of Orot. Jerusalem: Torat Eretz Yisrael Publications. ISBN 965-90114-0-7. 
• Samson, David; Tzvi Fishman (1997). War and Peace. Jerusalem: Torat Eretz Yisrael Publications. ISBN 965-90114-2-3. 
• Samson, David; Tzvi Fishman (1999). The Art of T'Shuva. Jerusalem: Beit Orot Publications. ISBN 965-90114-3-1. 

In online edition.

• (translation), The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook, Ben Yehuda Press 2006 (reprint). ISBN 0-9769862-3-X
• Rabbi Chanan Morrison, Gold from the Land of Israel: A New Light on the Weekly Torah Portion From the Writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, Urim Publications 2006. ISBN 965-7108-92-6

Analysis

• The Philosophy of Rabbi Kook, Zvi Yaron, Eliner Library, 1992.
• Essays on the Thought and Philosophy of Rabbi Kook, ed. Ezra Gellman, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8386-3452-4
• The World of Rav Kook's Thought, Shalom Carmy, Avi-Chai Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-9623723-2-3
• Rav Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook: Between Rationalism and Mysticism, Benjamin Ish-Shalom, translation Ora Wiskind Elper, SUNY Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7914-1369-1

Biography

• Simcha Raz, Angel Among Men: Impressions from the Life of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook Zt""L, translated (from Hebrew) Moshe D. Lichtman, Urim Publications 2003. ISBN 9657108535 ISBN 978-9657108536
• Yehudah Mirsky, "An Intellectual and Spiritual Biography of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaq Ha-Cohen Kook from 1865 to 1904," Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2007.

Quotes

על-כן הצדיקים הטהורים אינם קובלים על החושך, אלא מוסיפים אור, אינם קובלים על הרשעה אלא מוסיפים צדק, אינם קובלים על הכפירה אלא מוסיפים אמונה, אינם קובלים על הבערות אלא מוסיפים חכמה.

Therefore, the pure righteous do not complain of the dark but increase the light, they do not complain of evil but increase justice, they do not complain of heresy but increase faith, they do not complain of ignorance but increase wisdom.

יש בן חורין שרוחו רוח של עבד, ויש עבד שרוחו מלאה חירות; הנאמן לעצמיותו - בן חורין הוא, ומי שכל חייו הם רק במה שטוב ויפה בעיני אחרים - הוא עבד.

There could be a freeman with the spirit of the slave, and there could be a slave with a spirit full of freedom; whoever is faithful to his self - he is a freeman, and whoever fills his life only with what is good and beautiful in the eyes of others - he is a slave.

See also

• Hardal
• Religious Zionism
• Volozhin Yeshiva

External links

• Rav Kook's Biography video
• Selected Teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (and others), orot.com
• Introduction to the Thought of Rav Kook, vbm-torah.org
• Teachings of Rav Kook on Torah, Holidays, and Psalms, ravkooktorah.org
• Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, ou.org
• Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), Prof. Eliezer Segal
• Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, jewishvirtuallibrary.org
• Rav Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook (1865–1935), zionist.org.uk
• Life and Priciples, mizrachi.org
• Lectures on Rav Kook's writings, machonmeir.org.il
• Time-line of Rav Kook's life
• The Yeshiva he founded, today
• Rav Kook and Rav Shlomo Elyashev zt'l ("Leshem")
• Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook, from Ou.org
• Kook Family Tree (Archived 2009-10-24)
• Chapters from Orot, from zehut.net (Hebrew)
• KOOK (Kuk), AVRAHAM YIZHAQ (1865–1935), Encyclopaedia Judaica

Jewish titles
New title	Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine 1921–35	Succeeded by Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog
	Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Mercaz haRav 1921–35	Succeeded by Zvi Yehuda Kook

v • d • e Volozhin Yeshiva Location: Valozhyn, Belarus Faculty: Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin • Eliezer Fried • Refael Shapiro • Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (Beis Halevi) • Chaim Soloveitchik • Chaim Volozhin • Yitzchak Volozhin Alumni: Zelig Reuven Bengis • Shmuel Aleksandrov • Meir Bar-Ilan • Micha Josef Berdyczewski • Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin • Hayyim Nahman Bialik • David Cohen • Israel Davidson • Alter Asher Droyanov • Baruch Epstein • Moshe Mordechai Epstein • Isaac Halevy • Chaim Ozer Grodzinski • Abraham Harkavy • Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman • Jacob Joseph • Chaim Mordechai Katz • Abraham Isaac Kook • Moyshe Kulbak • Moshe Landyski • Boruch Ber Leibowitz • Aryeh Levin • Isser Zalman Meltzer • Samuel Mohilever • Shlomo Polachek • Yitzchak Yaacov Reines • Zundel Salant • Refael Shapiro • Shimon Shkop • Chaim Soloveitchik • Zalman Sorotzkin • Elchonon Wasserman • Kalman Zev Wissotzky

v • d • e Chief Rabbinate of Israel Chief Rabbis of Israel Ottoman rule Rishon L'Tzion Galante (1665-1689)  · Moshe ibn Habib (1689-1696)  · Moshe Hayun  · Avraham Yitzhaki (1715-1722)  · Benjamin Maali  · Eleazar Nahum (1730-1748)  · Nissim Mizrahi (1748-1754)  · Isaac Rapaport (? - ?)  · Israel Algazy (1754 - 1756)  · Raphael Meyuchas (1756-1791)  · Haim ben Asher (1771-1772)  · Yom Tov Algazy (1772-1802)  · Moshe Meyuchas (1802 - 1805)  · Jacob Aish (1806-1817)  · Jacob Coral (1817-1819)  · Joseph Hazzan (1819-1822)  · Yom Tov Danon (1822-1824)  · Solomon Suzin (1824-1836)  · Jonah Navon (1836-1841)  · Judah Navon (1841-1842) Haham Bashi (1842-1918) Gaggin (1842-1848)  · Covo (1848-1854)  · Abulafia (1854-1861)  · Hazzan (1861-1869)  · Ashkenazi (1859-1880)  · R. Panigel (1880-1893)  · Elyashar (1893-1914)  · J. Meir  · E. Panigel (1921-1939)  · Batito  · Danon British Mandate of Palestine Haim Moshe Eliashar (acting 1918-1921) Ashkenazi Kook (1921-1935)  · Herzog (1936-1949) Sephardi Meir (1921-1939)  · Uziel (1939-1948) State of Israel Ashkenazi Herzog (1949-1959)  · Unterman (1964-1973)  · Goren (1973-1983)  · Shapira (1983-1993)  · Lau (1993-2003)  · Metzger (2003–present[update]) Sephardi Uziel (1948-1954)  · Nissim (1955-1973)  · Yosef (1973-1983)  · Eliyahu (1983-1993)  · Bakshi-Doron (1993-2003)  · Amar (2003–present[update]) Chief Rabbinate Council (current as of 2008) Permanent Metzger  · Amar  · Lau  · Chelouche  · Deri Ashkenazi Shapira  · Grossman  · Glicksburg  · Rojza  · Ralbag Sephardi Elituv  · Yosef  · Arusi  · Eliyahu  · Peretz

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