Word: nissim
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...chair of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi has been vacant; last week the 125-man Rabbinical Electoral College chose for the post Dr. Iser Judah Unterman, 77, white-bearded Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and onetime Chief Rabbi of Liverpool. They also re-elected the Sephardi incumbent, Dr. Yitzhak Nissim...
Religious Jews are a minority in Israel, but there are enough that the Chief Rabbis can keep hotels, restaurants, airlines and ships kosher by threatening to place them off-limits. The choice of Unterman and Nissim means that many of the religious strictures so galling to nonobservant Jews will continue. Telegraph service is curtailed on the Sabbath (Saturday) and on religious holidays, and in most cities and towns there is no public transportation. Except for a few Christian Arab areas, pork products are not for sale, although nonkosher shrimp is available. El Al airlines does not originate or terminate flights...
...illegal-no rabbi may marry a Jew to a non-Jew-and civil marriage (and divorce) does not exist. The result is a storm of resentment between Israel's secular and religious Jews, which is currently whistling around the ears of silver-thatched Acting Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim...
...Rabbi Nissim's opponents feel that there is more than Orthodox scrupulosity behind his strictness to the Bene Israelis; they point out that Nissim is an Iraqi Jew and is prejudiced in favor of a group of rich, well-educated Iraqis who migrated to India during the 19th century, led by the famed Sassoon family, and fomented the bitter resentment of the Bene Israelis by trying to change their ways...
First Class. By last week, pressure on Chief Rabbi Nissim had mounted to a point where he seemed about to yield on Bene Israel and find an interpretation of the law that would give the sect first-class citizenship. Members of Bene Israel held a rally at which they threatened to resort to passive resistance and to stop all immigration from India. This possibility led Executive Chairman Moshe Sharett of the Jewish Agency to make a private plea to Nissim to change his ruling, and Premier David Ben-Gurion, who faces general elections in three weeks, told a mass meeting...