As Israel is engaged in a national effort to vaccinate the public, and with a majority of Israelis inoculated, the Rabbinate joined forces with the civilian leadership to fight misinformation and the dissemination of conspiracy theories around vaccines.
The Ashkenazy chief rabbi of Isreal Rabbi David Lau, who serves as head of the rabbinical judiciary system in Israel, has stated that rabbis and dayanim who refuse to vaccinate will be banished from sitting on the rabbinical courts.
The statement was issued after a Dayan in the army’s Giyur court, (a court established to oversee Jewish conversion for IDF soldiers) has been suspended after he refused to be vaccinated.
The office of Rabbi Lau has confirmed the details and explained the unusual move stating that a judge who does not want to be vaccinated can not risk the lives of those who come to litigate before the court.
According to the response of Garad Lau’s office, “all judges have an obligation to be vaccinated, and as long as this is legally possible, a judge who has not been vaccinated will not be able to serve in his position and endanger the court.”
