Degel Council of Torah Sages adds new members

• Date: 06 December 2020
• Published date: 06 December 2020
• Author: JEREMY SHARON
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The Council of Torah Sages is the ultimate authority within this community and the decisions reached by the rabbis who make up its membership are accepted as the policies which the Degel Hatorah political party carries out.

In practice the council convenes only rarely and on matters of extreme importance to the ultra-Orthodox community such as ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF, with Degel Hatorah MKs consulting individually with Kanievsky and Edelstein on less weighty matters.

Eight new rabbis, all of them yeshiva deans of prestigious yeshivas, were added to the council on Friday at meeting of the body

The last time new members were added was in 2012, and the council decided to appoint new rabbis at this time due to the death of several members in recent years.

The new members of the council are Rabbi Tzvi Drabkin and Rabbi Yitzhak Hacker and Rabbi, deans of the Grodna Yeshiva; Rabbi Shraga Shteinman, dean of the Orchot Hatorah Yeshiva and son of Rabbi Aaron Leib Shteinman, the late head of the council; Rabbi Aviezer Piletz, dean of the Tushia Yeshiva; Rabbi Baruch Visbaker, dean of the Beit Matityahu Yeshiva, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, dean of the Maor Hatalmud Yeshiva; Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, dean of the renowned Mir Yeshiva, and Rabbi Aryeh Levi, dean of the Schar and Sachir Yeshiva.

Following Friday's meeting, the council published eight decisions and declarations it made in the Sunday edition of the Yated Neeman daily newspaper, Degel's official news organ.

Those decisions included a demand from...