Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam Steps Down
The chief rabbi of Amsterdam, who has seen his authority diminished in recent years, said he will resign in September.
Aryeh Ralbag, a New York native who has held the nonsalaried position since 2005, cited his “inability to combine other work in the United States and Israel with tasks in Amsterdam,” according to a report Sunday in the Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad, or NIW, a Dutch Jewish weekly.
Ralbag, whose contract expires in 2017, is a co-owner of the U.S.-based Triangle K kosher supervision agency.
In a letter he sent to the Jewish Community of Amsterdam, or NIHS, Ralbag said, “I will no longer have or claim a role in, or be responsible for, the Amsterdam Rabbinate, the Amsterdam Beth Din or the Dutch kashrut authority of the NIK,” the Dutch Israelite Religious Community.
Ralbag has had a tense relationship with his employer, the board of the Jewish Community of the Netherlands. In recent years the board has curbed his authority as disagreements over his role deepened, NIW reported, leaving him responsible for little more than mentoring other rabbis.
Congregants and board members who lobbied not to have his contract extended cited his frequent absence from Amsterdam. Some also worried that his ownership of Triangle K presented a conflict of interest. Ralbag has denied the claims.
In 2012, he was suspended briefly by the board for co-signing the “Declaration On The Torah Approach To Homosexuality.” The document was deemed offensive by some members of the board, including some Reform Jews, because it called on “authority figures” to “guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
