Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a capitulation by Rabbi Uziel, Israel has had two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.
Cities with large Jewish communities may also have their own chief rabbis; this is especially the case in Israel but has also been past practice in major Jewish centers in Europe prior to the Holocaust. North American cities have rarely had chief rabbis, although some do have them: Montreal, in fact, has two—one for the Ashkenazi community, the other for the Sephardi.
The Chief Rabbi's name is often followed by ABD, which stands for Av Beth Din.
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Famous quotes containing the words chief and/or rabbi:
“Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit;Mnot to be reckoned one character;Mnot to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)