kiev | One country, three chief rabbis: Who is a Jew to follow in Ukraine?
Moshe Reuven Azman is the latest to be elected to the post, and critics of the Sept. 11 vote — who include most of the country’s rabbis and dozens of secular activists — said his election as Ukraine’s chief rabbi was primarily intended to increase media magnate Vadim Rabinovich’s influence over President Viktor Yuschenko.
The chief rabbi can better access Ukrainian authorities and international donors, as well as gain government recognition in the process of restitution of former Jewish communal property. In Ukraine, the government views the chief rabbi as the representative and chief liaison to the Jewish community.
Some other Jewish leaders said Azman, 39, was technically elected as chief rabbi of only two Jewish organizations in Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, both headed by Rabinovich.
Ukraine’s largest Jewish group, the Federation of Jewish Communities, represented by three dozen Chabad rabbis, said in a statement last month that the election was “illegitimate” and “insulting to the feelings of every believer.”
A chief rabbi can be elected only by other rabbis working in the community, the statement said. Azman’s election was endorsed by a group of secular Jewish leaders attending a Kiev Jewish conference, but not by any rabbinical authorities.
Some 150 secular Jewish leaders from 100 Ukrainian cities and towns later protested the vote as well.
Azman is the third rabbi to currently claim the title of chief rabbi in Ukraine.
Yakov Dov Bleich, a U.S.-born rabbi and member of the Karlin-Stoliner Chasidic group, has been widely recognized as chief rabbi of both Kiev and Ukraine since 1992.
Bleich, 41, a pioneer of Jewish renaissance in post-communist Ukraine, was never properly elected, yet he has shown no intention of giving up the post.
Ukrainian Jews got another chief rabbi in 2003 when Soviet-born, Brussels-based Azriel Haikin, 75, was proclaimed chief rabbi by dozens of Chabad rabbis working for the federation in Ukraine.
Those rabbis who supported Haikin’s election two years ago are the same ones who protested Azman’s election last month. Azman, who also is Soviet-born, is a Chabad-ordained rabbi but not a member of the federation.
A spokesman for the federation called Azman’s election “nonsense.”
“This game is aimed at getting political dividends on the eve of parliamentary elections,” said Oleg Rostovtsev, the federation’s spokesman, referring to national elections due next spring.
Azman, who acknowledged the difficulties he faces, said he will continue working for the community he has served for several years now, regardless of the debate.
“I’m happy to have an opportunity to serve all the Jewish people,” he said. “I consider this an honor to be a rabbi of all the Jews, but not a rabbi of all the rabbis in Ukraine.”
Some experts worry that the selection of Azman could further split the community with parliamentary elections just six months away.
“It’s impossible to consolidate the Jewish community in this situation when every two to three years we have a new chief rabbi of Ukraine,’ said Ilya Levitas of the Jewish Council of Ukraine.