David Lau

David Baruch Lau was born in Tel Aviv on January 13, 1966, to a family with prominent rabbinic connections.[1][8] His father, Yisrael Meir Lau, served as Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi from 1993 to 2003 and subsequently as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.[3] His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Yedidya Frankel, was also a former chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.[8] David Lau studied at Yeshivat Yishuv HaHadash and later at Yeshivat Beit Matityahu.[1]

In a questionnaire published in 2013, Lau described his education as including a religious high school and said that he had passed ten written rabbinical examinations.[9] He stated that the Chief Rabbinate Council certified his rabbinical qualifications in 1994.[9] He also served in the Intelligence Corps reserves; in the same questionnaire, he gave his rank as major.[9]

Lau married Tzipporah, the daughter of Hadassah and Yitzhak Ralbag.[1] Hadassah was a political activist, while Yitzhak Ralbag was a member of the Chief Rabbinate and a former chairman of the Jerusalem Religious Council.[1] Recalling his early expectations in a 2022 interview, Lau said that he had agreed with his future wife that they would marry but that he would not become a rabbi, joking that he had fulfilled only half of the agreement.[10] He explained that he had seen the burden and commitment associated with rabbinic office, although his life ultimately led him into that work.[10] The same interview described him as an accomplished basketball player who had once considered a different path from the rabbinate.[10]

Lau was the first rabbi of Shoham before becoming Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut.[1] In Modi’in, he served alongside Sephardi chief rabbi Eliyahu Alharar, with whom he established Torah classes covering subjects including kashrut, eruvim, and Jewish weddings.[1] Describing his municipal work in 2013, Lau said that he had established the city’s marriage, kashrut, eruv, and Torah-study services.[9] He also cited online marriage registration and an online “Ask the Rabbi” service among initiatives he had helped introduce there.[9]

His teaching extended beyond municipal institutions through broadcasting and the internet.[1] Beginning in 1999, he presented the daily program “Jewish Point” on Kol Chai.[1] From the summer of 2006, he appeared each Friday on HaArutz HaRishon’s “Ask the Rabbi,” answering questions about halakha, or Jewish law.[1] He was also the first rabbi in Israel to teach responsa over the internet.[1]

Alongside teaching, Lau published articles in journals including Tehumin and edited his father’s volume of responsa, Yichil Yisrael.[1] He edited and published a memorial book for his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Yedidya Frankel.[1] His own 2008 book, Maskil LeDavid, addressed genealogy, conversion, military law, and other halakhic subjects.[1] In his 2013 questionnaire, he described the book as dealing with substantial and complex questions of Jewish law.[9]

Election to the Chief Rabbinate

On July 24, 2013, Lau was elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, alongside Yitzhak Yosef as Sephardi chief rabbi.[3] The election took place at Jerusalem’s Leonardo Hotel, where 147 ballots were cast from an eligible electorate of 150.[3] That electorate comprised 80 rabbis representing religious councils and 70 government and local-authority officials.[3] Lau received 68 votes, compared with 54 for Rabbi David Stav and 25 for Rabbi Yaakov Shapira.[11] At 47, he was the youngest person elected chief rabbi of Israel up to that time.[1]

United Torah Judaism promoted Lau’s candidacy, while the religious Zionist Jewish Home party supported Stav.[3] Stav’s campaign emphasized reforming the rabbinate and reaching more secular Jews.[3] Both successful candidates were sons of former chief rabbis, and each received 68 votes.[3] Lau and Yosef were elected for ten-year terms, with responsibility for state religious institutions and thousands of appointments and jobs.[12] Lau’s inauguration took place on August 14, 2013, at the official residence of the President of Israel.[1]

After the election, Lau said that he wanted the Chief Rabbinate to become a more “welcoming” institution, without specifying a program of reforms.[11] Asked about easing marriage and conversion procedures, he said that its approach would be “appropriate” and would “continue tradition.”[11] He expressed a preference for dialogue among rabbis, saying, “To speak is better than to fight, I think.”[11] In his pre-election statement, he similarly advocated agreement rather than coercion, adherence to Jewish law, and reductions in bureaucracy where possible.[9]

National Responsibilities

The Chief Rabbinate regulates public religious life in Israel, including kashrut standards and personal-status matters such as marriage, divorce, burial, and conversion.[13] The Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis jointly supervise the institution, whose decisions have the force of law within its jurisdiction.[13] Its responsibilities also include rabbinical courts with authority over marriage, divorce, and adoption, as well as a role in immigration and conversion to Judaism.[3]

During the first five years of his tenure, Lau served as president of the Chief Rabbinate Council and as the principal halakhic decisor on kashrut and marriage matters.[4] After five years, he and Yosef exchanged roles, and Lau became president of the Great Rabbinical Court.[4] His judicial responsibilities included cases involving husbands who refused to grant religious divorces, women consequently unable to remarry, conversion, and the status of children classified as mamzerim under Jewish law.[4]

Lau’s stated preference for dialogue also appeared in his comments on integrating ultra-Orthodox men into military service and employment.[14] A commentary in the Jewish Review of Books reported that he supported such integration while warning against compulsion, quoting his statement that “a coercive process is not the way.”[14] The same commentary identified Rabbis Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman and Chaim Kanievsky among the ultra-Orthodox leaders who supported him.[14]

Kashrut Administration and New Food Technology

In 2014, Lau said that creating greater transparency in kashrut supervision had been a principal focus of his work since entering office.[15] That year, the Chief Rabbinate and Ministry of Religious Services announced a structural change intended to end the direct employment relationship between supervised businesses and their kashrut supervisors.[15] Responsibility was to move to a brokering company in order to address the conflict of interest inherent in businesses employing the people responsible for inspecting them.[15]

In June 2018, the Chief Rabbinate Council approved a plan under which external regional manpower companies, rather than the inspected businesses, would employ kashrut supervisors.[5] Lau was among those who led the effort to secure approval of the measure, which implemented a High Court ruling.[5] The council approved the employment-separation component, but other proposals, including uniform national procedures and camera-based supervision, remained unapproved amid disagreements.[5]

Lau also addressed the application of kashrut to food developed through new production methods.[7] In January 2023, after examining the production process of the Israeli company Aleph Farms and consulting professionals, he ruled that its cultured meat could qualify as kosher and pareve under specified conditions.[7] The product described in the ruling originated in stem cells taken from a fertilized egg before it joined the animal’s body; Lau treated that starting material as permissible for consumption.[7]

The classification depended partly on how the product was presented to consumers.[7] To qualify as pareve, it had to be marketed as a plant-based product closest to meat and labeled distinctly from slaughtered meat.[7] If marketed as meat, particularly when resembling meat in appearance, taste, and smell, it would be kosher but not pareve under his ruling.[7]

Medical Guidance and Individual Rulings

In 2017, Lau stated that patients must follow medical instructions even when doing so requires setting aside a religious commandment, because preserving life takes precedence.[6] Applying that principle to childbirth, he said that a woman in labor is treated as someone facing life-threatening danger and may perform actions on Shabbat that alleviate her anxiety.[6] He also recounted bringing an apple to a sick woman on Yom Kippur and filling out a medical form on Shabbat to persuade parents to vaccinate their child.[6]

On August 28, 2022, the Chief Rabbinate Council upheld a ruling by Lau permitting the denial of Jewish burial in Israel to the elderly father of a man who had refused for nearly 20 years to grant his former wife a get, or Jewish divorce.[16] Rabbinic authorities had previously excommunicated the husband and excluded him from communal prayer life.[16] His mother had been denied Jewish burial in the United States after her death in 2019.[16]

In March 2024, Lau ruled that David Ben Abraham, formerly known as Samah Zeitoun, should be buried in a Jewish cemetery.[17] Ben Abraham was a Palestinian from Hebron who had converted but was not recognized as Jewish by the authorities.[17] Lau explained the burial ruling through halakhic sources in a letter to the minister for religious services and the ministry’s director-general.[17]

Public Safety and Jewish Communal Life

In a 2015 interview, Lau condemned “price tag” attacks, attacks on churches, the arson attack on the Dawabsheh family home, and the murder at the Jerusalem Pride Parade.[18] He maintained that such acts were “not Judaism” and “not the way of the Torah.”[18] Discussing religious objections concerning idolatry, he said that Jewish law contained differing views on its definition and that individuals were not entitled to enforce the matter themselves.[18]

In 2016, Lau issued an open letter saying that child abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community must not be ignored or “swept under the rug.”[19] He called on parents, teachers, relatives, and education workers to recognize warning signs and help those in need.[19] His letter implied that abuse should be reported to authorities, although it did not explicitly call for police involvement.[19] In a later interview, he said that his efforts to raise awareness had included asking police to address sexual offenses while he was rabbi of Modi’in and urging mikvah attendants to be alert to sexual assault.[4]

In April 2018, after a Jewish community leader in Germany advised visitors to large cities to conceal their kippahs because of antisemitic attacks, Lau urged Jews not to remove them in public.[20] He described the kippah as a Jewish symbol and argued that responsibility for Jewish safety rested with the authorities rather than with Jews concealing their identity.[20] His office said that German citizens had sought his guidance, and Lau said he would raise the issue with Berlin authorities.[20]

Conversion and Jewish Status

Lau defended a central role for the state and Chief Rabbinate in marriage, divorce, and conversion.[18] In 2015, he argued that because the state administered marriage and divorce, it should also administer conversion, with the Chief Rabbinate serving as the responsible address.[18] He connected religious regulation of marriage and divorce to preserving a shared Jewish status for future generations.[18] He distinguished between being born Jewish and the separate question of who was authorized to perform conversions, favoring a standard accepted across Jewish communities.[18]

In July 2016, Lau was among those in Israel who expressed support for New York Orthodox rabbi Haskel Lookstein during a dispute over recognition of a conversion.[21] The Supreme Rabbinical Court had upheld a lower court’s determination that Lookstein was not authorized to perform the conversion of an American woman engaged to marry an Israeli Jew.[21]

After the Supreme Court ruled in March 2021 that Reform and Conservative conversions conducted in Israel must be recognized for purposes of the Law of Return, Lau said that people converted through Reform Judaism and similar movements were not Jewish and that a judicial ruling could not change their status.[22] The decision followed more than 15 years of petitions and drew public criticism from the chief rabbis.[22]

In December 2021, Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana promoted legislation allowing municipal rabbis to establish conversion courts for citizens of Jewish descent who were not recognized as Jewish under religious law.[23] Lau opposed transferring this authority from the Chief Rabbinate, arguing that it could create multiple conversion standards and damage Israel’s Jewish character.[4] In a letter to the prime minister, he warned of an “irreparable” split among Jews and wrote that, if the legislation advanced, “I will be forced to declare myself no longer responsible for anything to do with conversions.”[23]

The reform was also intended to assist some citizens from former Soviet countries who lacked the required documentation.[16] On January 12, 2022, Lau wrote to the civil service commissioner concerning the proposed appointment of Rabbi Benayahu Broner, citing government decisions that he argued gave him authority to lead the conversion system.[16] The government postponed a vote on the broader reform on March 20 after failing to secure a Knesset majority.[16]

Lau also advocated narrowing the Law of Return’s eligibility provisions for people with a Jewish grandparent.[18][16] In 2015, he argued that the provision had suited the period in which it was framed in response to Nazi persecution but was no longer appropriate.[18] On November 20, 2022, he again called for its removal, describing it as the “mistake of the third generation” and saying that he wanted Israel to remain “a Jewish state, a state of Jews.”[16]

End of Tenure

Lau’s service continued beyond the ten-year term for which he had originally been elected, ending on June 30, 2024, after nearly 11 years in office.[24] The assembly responsible for choosing successors had not yet convened, so temporary replacements were appointed.[24] Eliezer Igra became acting president of the Great Rabbinical Court, taking over Lau’s role, while Yaakov Roza was designated acting president of the Chief Rabbinate Council.[24] Among the reasons for the electoral delay was a legal impediment to the outgoing chief rabbis appointing representatives to the electoral assembly while their brothers were candidates.[24] Kalman Ber subsequently succeeded Lau as Ashkenazi chief rabbi in 2024, while David Yosef succeeded Yitzhak Yosef in the Sephardi office.[2]

Lau’s published work brought together several subjects that also formed part of his public responsibilities: genealogy, conversion, and military law appeared in his 2008 book Maskil LeDavid.[1] His editorial work preserved responsa by his father and commemorated his grandfather, linking his own scholarship with two earlier generations of rabbinic leadership.[1] Beyond print, his daily radio broadcasts, weekly television appearances, and internet teaching provided additional settings for answering questions about Jewish law.[1]

His administrative record included municipal religious services in Shoham and Modi’in, online marriage registration, and participation in the effort to separate kashrut supervisors’ employment from the businesses they inspected.[1][9] At the national level, he served in both of the principal leadership roles shared between Israel’s two chief rabbis: president of the Chief Rabbinate Council and president of the Great Rabbinical Court.[4] His rulings ranged from the priority of medical instructions in life-threatening circumstances to the conditions under which an Israeli cultured-meat product could be classified as kosher and pareve.[6][7]

Lau described the chief rabbinate as an institution with a responsibility to unite the Jewish people and bridge divisions.[9] His stated approach combined maintaining Jewish law with dialogue, less bureaucracy, and efforts to make the institution more welcoming.[9][11] His defense of centralized conversion authority and a common standard of Jewish status was another recurring feature of his public positions.[4][18]

The 2013 election took place amid competition between ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionist approaches to the Rabbinate, as well as allegations involving various candidates; the broader campaign allegations were not all allegations against Lau personally.[12] Shortly after his election, Lau faced criticism for using the Hebrew slang term “kushim” about Black basketball players, a term characterized as derogatory in reporting on the incident.[25] He subsequently characterized the remark as a joke.[25] Separately, a former official involved in rabbinical-examination oversight alleged that Lau had attempted to cheat on a 1993 ordination examination; Lau denied the allegation, and reporting stated that he was not disqualified from a Chief Rabbinate test and passed in 1994.[26]

Following the 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting, Lau condemned the killing of Jews and emphasized that the victims had been murdered because they were Jewish.[27] His description of the congregation as “a place of clear Jewish character,” rather than directly calling it a synagogue, prompted criticism concerning recognition of Conservative Judaism.[27] He cited its Torah scrolls, prayer shawls, prayer books, and worshippers, and distinguished his ideological disagreement with non-Orthodox Judaism from the Jewish identity of its adherents.[27]

In 2021, Lau was criticized for visiting Chaim Walder’s family during mourning after Walder’s death by suicide, following public allegations of sexual abuse.[4] Lau subsequently stated that victims should be believed and supported and that suspected harassment or abuse must be reported to the relevant authorities rather than concealed.[4]

The conversion-reform dispute produced direct criticism from government ministers and allegations that Lau was delaying approvals for political purposes.[23][16] Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested that Lau’s threatened withdrawal of responsibility could justify proceedings to end his term, while Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel said a public servant unwilling to implement government decisions should not remain in office.[23] Critics attributed a major conversion backlog to pressure against reform; Lau’s office said that detailed examination of each case was necessary, and Lau rejected claims that he was refusing conversions on the basis of applicants’ origins.[16][4]