The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and chief of the rabbinate’s top religious court, Rabbi David Lau, has suspended a rabbinical judge from a rabbinate court responsible for conversions, after the judge refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The judge in question was part of a court responsible for handling the conversions of IDF soldiers to Judaism.
Rabbi Lau said all judges are obliged to receive the vaccine.
“As far as he is concerned, it is the obligation of every judge to get vaccinated, and insofar as it is permitted by law, any judge who does not get vaccinated will be prevented from serving in his position and endangering others who come to the court,” Rabbi Lau’s office said in a statement.
Earlier on Tuesday, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said that there is “an improvement in the coronavirus infection rates,” while adding “but still, they aren’t simple. There is a clear decline in the number of patients in serious condition, and also in the number of new diagnoses, and a consistent increase in the number of people vaccinated – but we must be cautious.”
“Today we will surpass four million vaccinated people in Israel, of which 2.612 million have also received the second dose. Yesterday, we vaccinated 156,000 people.”
“We are still far from getting things back to normal, but I am happy that yesterday the Cabinet approved the reopening of a number of sectors, doing so cautiously.”