"If You Have Seen a Generally Unfavorable Generation" This is one of the important quotes as a starting point for a discussion of religious and state relations that accompanied the teachings of the Spanish Chief Rabbi of Israel in the decade between 1993 and 2003, Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi Doron.

Accordingly, he stunned the rabbinical world when, contrary to custom, he called for an end to the forced orthodox marriage on the entire population. "Not only is it of no use to impose a Torah on anyone who does not like it, but it also has the contempt of the Torah."

In normal times, masses would come to the Mount of Cemetery in Jerusalem yesterday to accompany him on his last journey. Yesterday a special, tiny funeral was held for one of the first and most notable Zionists (nicknamed the Spanish Chief Rabbi). Prime Minister Netanyahu eulogized him as an important link in the Torah scholarship chain of Spanish scholars. The former Spanish Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, mentioned his mythical predecessor in the post and said, "In our grievances, Rabbinical Rabbi Rabbi Ovadia has been taken from us for several years and we have seen him rest and now he (Rabbi Bakshi Doron) has also been taken. And we are shouting the sovereign of the world, for whom shall we cry? "

But what stood out most in the special funeral was the language gaps, the culture, and the view between Rabbi Bakshi Doron's obituaries in the Haredi media and the funeral itself and its coverage and discourse around the non-Haredi media. The observer from the side seemed to be separating from two different rabbis.

Everything Israel from outside the ultra-Orthodox world admired and recounted was not even mentioned in his near life and eulogy: not his call to abolish the Orthodox monopoly on marriage, not his call to abolish the standard for two rabbis: Sephardi and Ashkenazi in Israeli cities, not his call to cancel And volunteering to resign to lead to only one Chief Rabbi in Israel, not his struggle for a permit in Shmita because of the boycott of the ultra-Orthodox Torah world so much that he almost resigned, not the campaign that led him to elect Chief Rabbi of Israel in the round, Rabbi Yona Metzger, Long before he was convicted in court and dispossessed He was jailed for claiming that he would shame the prestigious institution, not his call for the dismantling of the Ministry of Religion, nor his attempts to hold interfaith dialogues between Jews and Arabs.

Double biography

All of these positions seem to have been erased from his biography, which turned out to be a double biography and perhaps therefore missed in terms of historical signature: two types of obituaries for one rabbinical figure were thus married in Israel yesterday. Due to the precautionary instructions from the Corona, some of the eulogies did so over the phone, including chairman Shas Arieh Deri, who shared the two types of eulogy and said about Rabbi Bakshi Doron: "He was a great generation in 'between man and his friend'."

Dr. Avishai Ben Haim is a News 13 commentator on ultra-Orthodox affairs