Israel mourns former chief rabbi

JERUSALEM — Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, who served as Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi for a decade beginning in 1993, was remembered as “a teacher for all Jewish communities in Israel and around the world.”

Rabbi Bakshi-Doron was niftar April 12 after being hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19. He was 79.

“For him the Torah was a guide for life,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”His essence was understanding, tolerance and love for the people and the state.”

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who served as Ashkenazi chief rabbi during Bakshi-Doron’s tenure, called him as a “great genius,” The Times of Israel reported. “There was nobody as honest as you.” He was born in Jerusalem to immigrants from Iran and Syria.

Despite his criticism of liberal Jewish denominations, Rabbi Bakshi-Doron expressed support for efforts to ease the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over Jewish marriages and allow marriages to be performed in Israel outside the framework of Jewish law.

“Israel has lost an important voice that was both part of the religious establishment while understanding that established religion must have its limits,” Rachel Stomel of the Center for Women’s Justice told the JTA. “Notably, Rabbi Bakshi-Doron advocated for civil marriage as an alternative to the state-mandated religious marriage currently in place. His stance, which earned him much backlash from the ultra-Orthodox world, was pragmatic.”

In 1993, Bakshi-Doron made waves when he ruled that women could be deciders of Jewish religious law. He later clarified that he was not endorsing granting rabbinic titles to women.

Rabbi Bakshi-Doron also engaged in interfaith efforts, meeting with the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in 1998 and Pope John Paul II during his visit to Jerusalem in 2000.

He is survived by 10 children. His wife, Esther, died in 2005. He was buried April 13 at Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetery.