Meir Lau elected chief rabbi of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv has got a new chief rabbi, following two years of vacancy of this post. Israel Meir Lau, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, was elected to the Tel Aviv post on Sunday by a municipal council vote of 19-10. His rival in the race was Beersheba’s chief rabbi, Yehuda Deri, brother of Aryeh Deri, the influential former leader of the Orthodox Shas Party. Lau, a Holocaust survivor and Israel Prize winner, can keep his new office for life but is widely expected to resign in 2008 so he can run for the Israeli presidency. Tel Aviv lost its last chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, in 2003 when he became chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel. The hiatus in filling the post was attributed to infighting over whether Amar’s successor should be Sephardi or Ashkenazi, and because many people in secular Tel Aviv are largely indifferent to the lack of a chief rabbi.