Chief Rabbinate of Israel

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel (Hebrew: הָרַבָּנוּת הָרָאשִׁית לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, Ha-Rabbanut Ha-Rashit Li-Yisra'el) is recognized by law as the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel. It was established in 1921 under the British Mandate, and today operates on the basis of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel Law, 1980. The Chief Rabbinate Council assists the two Chief Rabbis, who alternate in its presidency. It has legal and administrative authority to organize religious arrangements for Israeli Jews. It also responds to halakhic questions submitted by Jewish public bodies in the Diaspora. The Council sets, guides, and supervises agencies within its authority.

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel consists of two Chief Rabbis: an Ashkenazi rabbi and a Sephardi rabbi; the latter also is known as the Rishon leZion. The Chief Rabbis are elected for 10-year terms. The present Sephardi Chief Rabbi is David Yosef, and the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi is Kalman Ber, both of whom began their terms in 2024.

The Rabbinate has jurisdiction over many aspects of Jewish life in Israel. Its jurisdiction includes personal status issues, such as Jewish marriages and Jewish divorce, as well as Jewish burials, conversion to Judaism, kosher laws and kosher certification, Jewish immigrants to Israel (olim), supervision of Jewish holy sites, working with various ritual baths (mikvaot) and yeshivas, and overseeing Rabbinical courts in Israel.

The Rabbinical courts are part of Israel's judicial system and are managed by the Ministry of Religious Services. The courts have exclusive jurisdiction over the marriage and divorce of Jews and have parallel competence with district courts in matters of personal status, alimony, child support, custody, and inheritance. Religious court verdicts are implemented and enforced—as for the civil court system—by the police, bailiff's office, and other agencies.

In 2024, the High Court of Justice ruled that women are eligible to serve on the Chief Rabbinate Council and as rabbis on the Chief Rabbi Election Assembly.

The Chief Rabbinate headquarters are at the Beit Yahav building, 80 Yirmiyahu Street, Jerusalem. The former seat of the institution, the Heichal Shlomo building, has been mainly a museum since 1992.

All religious and personal status matters in Israel are determined by the religious authorities of the recognised confessional communities to which a person belongs. There are Jewish, Muslim, and Druze communities, and ten officially recognised Christian communities. This organisation is based on the Millet system employed in the Ottoman Empire.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the title of Rishon LeZion was given to the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. In 1842, the position of "Hakham Bashi", Chief Rabbi of Constantinople who represented the Turkish Jews before the Sultan, and the position of Rishon LeZion, which at that time already represented the Old Yishuv before the Sultan, were combined into one position, called Rishon LeZion.