Aryeh Stern (, born 27 November 1944) is the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel, and the chief editor of the Halacha Brura and Berur Halacha Institute.

Biography

Aryeh Stern was born in 1944 in Tel Aviv, and studied at the HaYishuv HaChadash yeshiva, led by Rabbi Yehuda Kolodetsky. Stern then moved to the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and after a short while to the Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva, following his rabbi who served as its head, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. After Stern married, he commenced his studies for dayanut, Jewish-religious judgeship, in the Tel Aviv kolel of Rabbi Ephraim Bordiansky, who also instructed Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. Stern fought in the Six-Day War in the Combat Engineering Corps, and in the Yom Kippur War. Kook appointed Stern and Rabbi Yochanan Fried to establish the Halacha Brura and Berur Halacha Institution, which Stern has since run. The Halacha Brura was one of the chief works of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Zvi Yehuda Kook's father. Following Zvi Yehuda Kook's death in 1982, Stern was appointed as lecturer in the Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva. He also lectures in other yeshivas, including Yeshivat HaKotel, Yeshivat Kiryat Shmona, Yeshivat Or Etzion, and Yeshivat Hesder Petah Tikva. Stern was the head of Hadrom high school yeshiva in Rehovot, and was one of the founders of the Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts for the religious-national sector in 1989. He has worked in the organization of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook's House in Jerusalem, an active museum of Kook's life, and in the establishment of the Merchavim Institute for training teachers and religious educators. Stern has written hundreds of Halachic responsa and religious-philosophical articles regarding Jewish thought. He is also congregational rabbi at the Har Horev synagogue in the Katamon neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem

Stern was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem on 22 October 2014. The position had been vacant for eleven years, following the death of the former Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Yitzhak Kolitzm, in 2003. Stern was elected by a majority vote of 27 of the 48 representatives from the city's synagogues, city councils, and voters appointed by then-Minister of Religious Services Naftali Bennett. He had been elected the candidate of the Religious Zionism sector in 2009. He faced motions in the Supreme Court to disqualify him from running due to an expired rabbinical certificate, and an attempt to postpone the elections until after his seventieth birthday when he would become ineligible to submit his candidacy. Stern's election was backed by Bennett, leader of the Bayit Yehudi party, and by Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat. Alongside Stern, Rabbi Shlomo Amar was elected as the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the city. Among the supporters of Rabbi Stern were rabbis Haim Drukman and Aharon Lichtenstein, two prominent leaders of the modern-orthodox in Israel, the Rebbe of Erlau, a member of the Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, and Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. The rabbis of Tzohar also supported Stern. Upon his election, Stern said, "It is in my intention to serve as the rabbi of all Jerusalemites: secular, modern-orthodox and charedi alike. The Jerusalem rabbinate is a great merit, but it also comprises a hefty responsibility. I will make sure that the religious services will become accessible and friendly and will serve as an outstanding model for all of the other rabbinates in Israel". On 28 December 2014, Stern was appointed by President Reuven Rivlin as a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel.

Positions