Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron

Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron was born in Jerusalem in 1941.[4] He studied at Hebron Yeshivah and continued his learning in the kollelim of Mosad Ha-Rav Kook and Kol Ya’akov.[4] His scholarly formation brought together the Lithuanian approach he encountered at Hebron Yeshivah and the Sephardi halakhic tradition, a combination recalled in tributes following his death.[1]

His wife, Esther, was the daughter of a former chief rabbi of Akko, and the couple had ten children.[3] Esther died in 2005, leaving him widowed.[3] His subsequent educational and rabbinic work included leadership of kollelim and other Torah institutions in several Israeli cities.[4][1]

After receiving rabbinical ordination, Bakshi-Doron served as a community rabbi in Bat Yam from 1970 to 1972 and was elected the city’s chief rabbi in 1972.[3] In 1975 he became chief Sephardi rabbi of Haifa, remaining in that position until his election as Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel in 1993.[3] His national appointment followed a municipal rabbinic career that had taken him from a neighborhood position in Bat Yam to leadership of the religious communities of two cities.[3]

Bakshi-Doron’s ten-year term as Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi ended in April 2003.[4] He served alongside Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, and during his tenure he was also president of the Great Rabbinical Court.[9][10] Lau later recalled that the two had been selected on the same day despite having had no prior acquaintance and coming from very different backgrounds.[9] Although they sometimes disagreed, they presented a united front and maintained a close friendship after leaving office.[9]

His responsibilities included difficult questions of personal status, and he worked to reduce to a minimum the list of people prohibited from marrying.[11] His engagement with marriage and divorce also extended to the circumstances of women refused divorces and to the selection of rabbinical judges.[10][12] These matters formed part of a wider body of work addressing the relationship between halakhic decisions, public institutions, and individual circumstances.[4]

Bakshi-Doron published dozens of articles addressing halakhic solutions to medical, economic, legal, and social problems, as well as subjects in political science.[4] Two volumes of Binyan Av appeared in 1982 and 1989, covering aspects of halakhah and rabbinic responses to contemporary questions.[4] A third volume followed the weekly Torah readings and incorporated discussions of aggadah and Jewish thought together with speeches.[4] His publications also included a book issued in 1995, alongside the earlier works on religious questions and daily halakhic issues.[3]

His educational activity included establishing a kolel in Tel Aviv, an advanced bet midrash in Bat Yam, and a Torah learning center in Haifa.[4] He headed Binyan Av in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood and Dvei Eliyahu in Beit Vagan, and taught at Porat Yosef Yeshiva, where he had served as head of the kollel.[1] He also served as president of the Committee of Sephardi Communities and on the boards of social and charitable foundations, including Libi.[4]

In his treatment of kashrut, Bakshi-Doron explained why the Chief Rabbinate did not ordinarily rely on Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s leniency concerning government-supervised milk.[6] He considered that leniency unnecessary in Israel because chalav yisrael milk was available.[6] His explanation distinguished the question of ordinary milk from that of powdered milk: when chalav yisrael powdered milk had been scarce, the Rabbinate had relied on Rabbi Frank’s leniency concerning powdered milk.[6] That reliance belonged to standard certification rather than mehadrin certification, and products using it required a disclaimer on their packaging.[6]

Bakshi-Doron explained that the Rabbinate hoped eventually to discontinue reliance on the powdered-milk leniency as chalav yisrael powdered milk became readily available.[6] He also argued that the prohibition of chalav akum had a social purpose in guarding against assimilation, rather than being exclusively a question about the milk itself.[6] Contemporary food production supplied another reason for his strict approach: he expressed concern that manufacturers might add non-kosher ingredients that government supervisors would not regard as objectionable.[6] His discussion therefore connected certification policy with both the availability of alternatives and the limits of governmental oversight.[6]

On women’s religious learning and authority, Bakshi-Doron held that a woman qualified through intensive Torah and halakhic study could serve as a halakhic decisor and teach rulings.[7] In Binyan Av, he connected the legitimacy of such a role to a congregation’s acceptance and trust, writing, “Indeed trust and acceptance are obviously a key element in leadership.”[7] His reasoning also compared some rabbinic answers to guidance accessible in a halakhic book.[7] The discussion concerned the authority to communicate and decide halakhic questions on the basis of learning and communal confidence.[7]

After leaving office, Bakshi-Doron argued for reconsidering Israel’s requirement of Jewish Orthodox marriage and suggested an alternative route for couples who wished to marry differently.[5] He criticized a reported practice in which some rabbis conducted weddings with invalid witnesses because they expected the couples not to observe the prohibition on adultery.[5] His objection was that the couple could believe themselves married even though, under the relevant halakhic reasoning, the marriage was invalid.[5] He also warned that these arrangements could generate other halakhic problems rather than resolve the difficulties they were intended to address.[5]

He suggested rescinding Israel’s Marriage Law, which would end the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly on Jewish marriage and divorce.[4] His concern was that the rabbinic process was creating more enemies than friends of Judaism among secular Jews.[4] His proposal thus addressed not only the legal arrangements surrounding marriage but also the effect those arrangements had on the relationship between secular Jews and Judaism.[4]

Tani Frank, in a retrospective opinion article, portrayed Bakshi-Doron as supporting a state conversion system that decentralized some authority from the Chief Rabbinate and as seeking burial solutions for people not considered Jewish under halakhah.[13] Frank placed these initiatives within his efforts to address religion-and-state questions and observed that some of his more explicit arguments against coercion came after his chief-rabbi tenure.[13]

The Temple Mount was another recurring subject of Bakshi-Doron’s public interventions.[4][14] In June 2000, before the Camp David peace talks, he wrote to Prime Minister Ehud Barak supporting Barak’s not insisting on Jewish prayer rights on the Mount and urging preservation of the existing status quo.[14] He warned: “We must act with suspicion concerning any change in the current status, as that would likely desecrate the sanctity of the space and lead to the spilling of blood.”[14] His letter also called for access and security for worshippers according to their faith.[14]

Bakshi-Doron suggested that Muslims retain authority over the Temple Mount while criticizing unsupervised Arab construction there.[4] His positions combined opposition to Jewish entry with concern about the site’s sanctity and its administration.[4][15] His support for maintaining the status quo was therefore accompanied by objections to activity that he considered problematic within that arrangement.[4][14]

An analysis by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs identifies Bakshi-Doron as a disciple of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef and describes his opposition to changing the prohibition on Jewish access to the Mount.[15] It recounts his 1995 argument, following the peace agreement with Jordan, against permitting entry to designated areas: he feared visitors would not distinguish permitted from forbidden sections or observe requirements of ritual purity.[15] The analysis also presents his view that permitting entry to some sections could weaken Jewish claims to the rest, quoting him as saying, “The best way to strengthen Jewish sovereignty is to say that the entire Mount is holy.”[15] It records the Chief Rabbinate Council’s reaffirmation of the ban in 1997.[15]

A separate Jerusalem Center analysis recounts a businessman’s question to Bakshi-Doron after the Jordanian peace treaty about promoting religious Muslim tourism in Israel, centered on the Temple Mount.[16] It quotes his published response warning that encouraging such tourism could strengthen Muslim attachment to the site and, in his judgment, endanger Jewish settlement and Israel’s future.[16] That discussion also identifies his opposition to Jewish visits as grounded in halakhic considerations.[16]

Interfaith dialogue occupied a significant place in Bakshi-Doron’s public activity during his chief-rabbi tenure.[2] In 2000, he and Yisrael Meir Lau met Pope John Paul II during the pope’s visit to Israel.[17] He also corresponded with Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the Egyptian leader of al-Azhar, as efforts developed to arrange meetings between religious leaders.[2] Those efforts followed Lau’s December 1997 meeting with Tantawi in Cairo, which had drawn severe criticism of Tantawi in Egypt.[2]

On September 12, 2001, Bakshi-Doron called on Islamic clerics who had issued a fatwa ordering suicide bombings and describing the bombers as martyrs to rescind it.[4] He urged them instead to proclaim the sanctity of life and forbid large-scale attacks on innocent civilians.[4] His appeal asked religious authorities to use their influence explicitly against the killing of civilians.[4]

On January 20–21, 2002, he participated among the Israeli representatives at an interfaith summit in Alexandria, Egypt.[2] Approximately twenty religious scholars from Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority attended under the presidency of Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.[2] Their discussions included disagreements over Jerusalem’s future, while their seven-point statement called on Israelis and Palestinians to reject violence and live together as neighbors.[2]

The Alexandria declaration affirmed respect for one another’s religious and historical rights, protection of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish holy places, and preservation of freedom of worship.[2] It stated that “all the monotheistic faiths prohibit the killing of innocents and regard it a crime, and all faiths and believing people should condemn violence.”[2] Bakshi-Doron’s participation placed him within an effort to formulate shared religious commitments amid the political disagreements addressed at the summit.[2]

His interfaith contacts extended beyond Christian and Muslim leaders to a meeting with a Sikh delegation.[18] At that meeting, he proposed using the media and the internet to circulate examples of charitable work and to connect Jewish and Sikh communities.[18] He also suggested exploring a Jerusalem prayer center in which different communities could pray side by side according to their own traditions.[18] He regularly explored religious approaches to Jerusalem’s problems with Muslim clerics as well.[18]

Bakshi-Doron died at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on April 12, 2020, aged 79, from complications of COVID-19.[1] He had underlying health conditions, and the hospital reported that his condition had worsened and resuscitation efforts had been unsuccessful.[1] His funeral took place at Har HaMenuchot under pandemic restrictions, with his family and the police asking the public not to attend.[1]

A niece’s account of the funeral recalled a final family connection shortly before his death.[19] His daughter had given birth eight days earlier, and the family held a customary gathering for the newborn the day before he died.[19] They called him so that he could hear his grandchildren sing “In honor of the beloved Eliyahu the prophet”; his niece recalled that he smiled and that these were among the last words he heard.[19]

President Reuven Rivlin recalled discussions with Bakshi-Doron during his chief-rabbi tenure and praised his concern for individuals, including his work on behalf of women who had been refused divorces.[10] Chief Rabbi David Lau remembered his counsel and practical wisdom in supporting Israel’s rabbis and rabbinical judges and his leadership of Torah institutions in which many scholars developed.[10] These tributes emphasized both his institutional responsibilities and the personal assistance he offered through them.[10]

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef credited Bakshi-Doron with transforming the Chief Rabbinate’s kashrut system and reorganizing its departments.[1] His scholarly and educational legacy included the Binyan Av responsa series and the Torah institutions he led in Jerusalem, alongside the educational centers he established in Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, and Haifa.[4][1] His writings ranged from practical rulings on contemporary problems to Torah commentary, aggadah, and Jewish thought.[4]

His Torah scholarship received the Rabbi Maimon Prize for Torah work and the Rabbi Toledano Prize for Torah literature.[20] His longstanding friendship with Yisrael Meir Lau continued after their joint chief-rabbi service, while the recollections following his death also preserved his work across Sephardi and Lithuanian scholarly traditions.[1][9]

Bakshi-Doron’s proposal to rescind the Marriage Law caused a major uproar in religious circles, while his positions on Muslim authority and construction on the Temple Mount also attracted controversy.[4] His 1993 election had received support from rabbis associated with Shas and Yahadut ha-Torah and was accompanied by perceptions that he was subordinate to those parties.[11]

A separate controversy followed a 1996 sermon praising the biblical Pinchas: Reform leader Eric Yoffie called for prosecution, while Bakshi-Doron denied that the sermon implied violence against Reform Jews or intermarried couples.[21] The account of this episode rests on a thesis citing secondary literature rather than firsthand reporting.[21] Bakshi-Doron also expressed the view that intermarriage threatened the Jewish people.[21]

An account by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs describes his public opposition in 2002 to appointing Dayan Hagai Izirer to the Rabbinical Court of Appeals because of Izirer’s decisions in agunot cases.[12] It also recounts opposition from twenty-five women’s organizations, an unsuccessful petition against the appointment, and Izirer’s eventual appointment on November 19, 2002.[12]

In 2012, Bakshi-Doron was indicted in the “rabbis’ case,” concerning allegations that false religious-education credentials enabled security personnel to obtain state-funded salary increases.[22] The indictment concerned approximately 1,500 certificates issued between 1999 and 2003 and alleged misrepresentation of recipients’ study credits and hours.[22] It alleged that he instructed Rabbi Yitzhak Ohana to issue higher-level certificates and overlook eligibility criteria; the case against him had initially been closed before being reopened after further proceedings and new information.[22] The alleged benefits amounted to monthly bonuses of NIS 2,000–4,000, with additional state payments reported in the hundreds of millions of shekels.[23]

In 2017, the Jerusalem District Court convicted him of fraud-related offenses, issuing false certificates, and fraud and breach of trust, imposing twelve months’ suspended imprisonment and a NIS 250,000 fine.[23] Under a plea arrangement he relinquished pension rights, and the prosecution dropped its demand for a finding of moral turpitude.[24]

His family continued his appeal after his death, and on May 25, 2021, the Supreme Court set aside the conviction and sentence and ordered the proceedings discontinued.[8] The Court found that his medical condition during the trial meant he had been unfit to stand trial and that proceedings should have been stopped.[8] The majority did not decide the substantive arguments concerning the allegations: the ruling resolved the case on fitness grounds rather than through a judgment on its underlying merits.[8]