GOREN, SHLOMO. Pesak HaDin Be’Inyan Ha’Ach ...

GOREN, SHLOMO. Pesak HaDin Be’Inyan Ha’Ach Veha’Achoth.
ONLY EDITION.
pp. 200. Original printed wrappers, foxed. 8vo.

Jerusalem, Government Press Office, 1973.

    Legal defense by Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren concerning the Langer Siblings who discovered they were ineligible to wed as they wished. Years earlier the siblings had unknowingly been placed on a list of "mamzerim" that circulated to all the branch-offices of the Israeli Rabbinate.

    Subsequent contention in seeking to resolve this matter became a bitter cause-celebre. What should have remained a strictly halachic decision became highly politicized, with tensions rising along the fault line of partisan considerations, i.e. Mizrachi (Zionist) and Agudah (anti-Zionist).
The former Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Shlomo Goren intimated that were he elected Chief Rabbi of Israel, he would resolve the case in a manner satisfactory to all.

    Immediately, Goren was portrayed as a lackey of the Israeli government, intent on currying favor with secular politicians. Yet on the other hand, Charedi Dayanim R. Karelitz and R. Elyashiv were publicly vilified as insensitive to the plight of the two Langer siblings.

    Besides providing the court protocols and halachic justification for Rabbi Goren's lenient ruling, this publication portrays a sensitivity to a rather sordid and tragic affair that had ramifications for many years in the ongoing Kulturkampf between secular and religious Israelis.