Chief Rabbi

Chief rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognised religious leader of that country's Jewish community. Since 1911, through a capitulation by R' Uziel, Israel has had two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.[1]

Cities with large Jewish communities may also have their own chief rabbis; this is especially the case in Israel but has also been past practice in major Jewish centres in Europe prior to the Holocaust. North American cities have rarely had chief rabbis, although some do have them: Montreal, in fact, has two — one for the Ashkenazi community, the other for the Sephardi.

Chief Rabbis by land/region

Mandate of Palestine

• Abraham Ashkenazi (1869-1880)

Ashkenazi

• Abraham Isaac Kook (1921-1935)
• Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1936-1949)

Sephardi

• Jacob Meir (1921-1939)
• Benzion Uziel (1939-1948)

Israel

Ashkenazi

• Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1949-1959)
• Isser Yehuda Unterman (1964-1973)
• Shlomo Goren (1973-1983)
• Avraham Shapira (1983-1993)
• Yisrael Meir Lau (1993-2003)
• Yona Metzger (2003–present)

Sephardi

• Benzion Uziel (1948-1954)
• Yitzhak Nissim (1955-1973)
• Ovadia Yosef (1973-1983)
• Mordechai Eliyahu (1983-1993)
• Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron (1993-2003)
• Shlomo Amar (2003–present)

Argentina

• Shlomo Ben Hamo

Austria

• Akiva Eisenberg
• Paul Chaim Eisenberg

Belgium

• Avraham Guigui (As of 2005)

British Empire and Commonwealth

• Judah Loeb Cohen (1696-1700)
• Aaron the Scribe of Dublin (1700-1704)
• Aaron Hart (1704-1756)
• Hart Lyon (1758-1764)
• David Tevele Schiff (1765-1791)
• Solomon Hirschell (1802-1842)
• Nathan Marcus Adler (1845-1891)
• Hermann Adler (1891-1911)
• Joseph Herman Hertz (1913-1946)
• Sir Israel Brodie (1948-1965)
• Lord Immanuel Jakobovits (1966-1991)
• Sir Jonathan Sacks (1991–present)

External link: Website of the Chief Rabbi of the the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

Cuba

• Meir Rosenbaum (1910-2003) (Son of Rabbi Issamar of Nadvorna, Elected 1948: left Cuba in 1956, a little more than two years before Fidel Castro came to power in the Revolution)

Estonia and Finland

• Michael Alony, Ph.D. (1995-1996)

Guatemala

• Meir Rosenbaum (Son of Rabbi Issamar of Nadvorna, Later Chief Rabbi of Cuba)

Hungary

Note that this list is out of order.

• Meir ben Isaac (1708-), rabbi of Eisenstadt and author of "Panim Me'irot"
• Alexander ben Menahem
• Phinehas Auerbach
• Jacob Eliezer Braunschweig
• Hirsch Semnitz
• Simon Jolles (1717-)
• Samson Wertheimer (1693?-1724)(also Eisenstadt and Moravia)
• Bernhard Eskeles(Issachar Berush Eskeles) (1725-1753) [2]
• Joseph Hirsch Weiss, grandfather of Stephen Samuel Wise. [3] [4]
• Samuel Kohn
• Ferenc Hevesi
• Moshe Kunitzer (1828-1837), a pioneer of the Haskalah movement in Hungary.
• Alfréd Schöner
• Koppel Reich
• Chaim Yehuda Deutsch
• József Schweiczer (Schweitzer)

Ireland

• Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog — (1921-1937)
• Immanuel Jakobovits — (1949-1958)
• David Rosen — (1979-1985)
• Gavin Broder — (1996 - 2000)
• Yaakov Pearlman — (2001–present)

Mexico

• Jacob Avigdor-- (1952-1967)

Poland

See also List of Polish Rabbis

• Michael Schudrich (2004–present)

Russia

• Berel Lazar

South Africa

• Louis Rabinowitz
• Bernard M. Casper
• Cyril Harris
• Warren Goldstein

Transylvania

Note: The chief rabbi of Transylvania was generally the rabbi of the city of Gyulafehérvár (also known as Alba Iulia and Karlsburg).

• Joseph Reis Auerbach (d. 1750)
• Shalom Selig ben Saul Cohen (1754-57)
• Johanan ben Isaac (1758-60)
• Benjamin Ze'eb Wolf of Cracow (1764-77)
• Moses ben Samuel Levi Margaliot (1778-1817)
• Menahem ben Joshua Mendel (1818-23)
• Ezekiel Paneth (1823-1843)
• Abraham Friedmann (d. 1879), the last chief rabbi of Transylvania

Turkey

See: List of individuals holding the title Hakham Bashi

• Ishak Haleva (2003- )

Ukraine

• Yaakov Dov Bleich - (1992 - present) - original post-communism chief rabbi, still widely recognized Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and Kiev
• Rabbi Alex Dukhovny - The Progressive (Liberal/Reform) Chief Rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine
• Azriel Haikin - (2003 - present) - Chabad affiliated - not fully recognized as Ukraine Chief Rabbi, but heads the Ukrainian Chabad [5]
• Moshe Reuven Azman - (2005 - present) - rabbi from Chabad, though elected mostly by secular Jewish leaders and not by any rabbinical authority [6]

Venezuela

Sephardi

• Isaac Cohen

Chief rabbis of cities

Austria

Vienna

• Chief rabbi of the orthodox congregation Paul Chaim Eisenberg

Belgium

Antwerp

• Chaim Kreiswirth (1953-2001)

Czechoslovakia

Nové Zámky, Slovakia

• Dr. Ernest Klein, served 1931–1944

Hungary

Budapest

• Yonasan Steif, pre-World War Two

Iran

• Hakham Yedidiah Shofet
• Hakham Uriel Davidi
• Mollah Yosef (present)

Israel

During the pre-state years, the British instituted the Chief Rabbinate which would become the official state rabbinate of the State of Israel upon the founding of that state. Haredi Jewish groups (such as HaEdah HaCharedis) do not recognize the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. They usually have their own rabbis who do not have any connection to the state rabbinate.

Please note that under current Israeli law, the post of Chief Rabbi exists in only four cities (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheba). In other cities there may be one main rabbi to whom the other rabbis of that city defer, but that post is not officially the "Chief Rabbi".

Jerusalem

Ashkenazi, under Ottoman and British rule:

• Meir Auerbach
• Shmuel Salant
• Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld

Sephardi, under Ottoman and British rule:

• Jacob Saul Alyashar

Many of Israel's chief rabbis were previously chief rabbis of Israeli cities.

Tel Aviv-Yaffo

Sephardi

• Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (1911-1939)
• Ovadia Yosef (1968-1973)
• Hayim David HaLevi (1973-1998?)

Haifa

Ashkenazi

• She'ar Yashuv Cohen

Sephardi

• Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron (1975-1993)

Italy

Rome

• Elio Toaff (1951-2002)
• Riccardo Di Segni (2002-)

Netherlands

Amsterdam

• Tzvi Ashkenazi
• Aryeh Ralbag

Leiden

• Simon de Vries

Rotterdam

• Josiyahu Pardo
• Arye Leib Breslau
• Dr. Joseph Isaacsohn
• Dr. Bernhard Löbel Ritter
• A.B.N. Davids
• Lou Vorst (1945-1971)
• A. Hutterer
• Raphael Evers

United States

New York

Rabbi Jacob Joseph was the only true chief rabbi of New York City. However, others claimed the title also; eventually, the title became worthless through dilution.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Parnes, the Brooklyner Rebbe, was also considered as such, arriving in Borough Park, Brooklyn in approximately 1913; due to the many non-observant Jews then working for the local utility companies, he did not use any electricity on the Sabbath. The Grand Rabbi of Satmar as well as many other Religious Jews in America in the early 1900's were his adherents.

Hoboken

• Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn was Chief Rabbi of Hoboken from 1904 until his death, a post which included "The West, that is Jersey City, Union Hill and the Environs" (from title page of Malki Ba-Kodesh, vol. 2; Hoboken, 1921) in its jurisdiction.

Chicago

• Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky, the Ridbaz, served as chief rabbi of the Russian-American congregations in the city from 1903-1905.