Shmuel Rabinovitch
| Rabbi Samuel Rabinowitz | |
|---|---|
| Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel | |
Rabbi Samuel Rabinowitz
|
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| Synagogue | Western Wall |
| Position | Rabbi |
| Organisation | Western Wall |
| Began | 1995 |
| Predecessor | Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz |
| Other | Chairman, The Western Wall Heritage Foundation |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Shmuel Rabinovitch |
| Born |
April 4, 1970 Jerusalem |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Denomination | Haredi |
| Residence | Ezrat Torah |
| Parents | Rabbi Chaim Yehuda and Chenka Yuta Rabinovitch |
| Children | 7 |
| Alma mater | Kol Torah |
Shmuel Rabinovitch, also spelled Rabinowitz (Hebrew: שמואל רבינוביץ) (born 4 April 1970, Jerusalem) is an Orthodox rabbi and Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel. In his duties as Rabbi of the Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, Rabbi Rabinovich maintains the historic traditional Jewish practices of the Wall as a site of orthodox Jewish prayer and ensures that notes placed in the Wall are removed and treated consistent with tradition and halakhah. He escorts visiting heads of state and foreign dignitaries during visits to the Wall, and has published on the Jewish laws and customs of the Western Wall.
Rabbi Rabinowitz was appointed to the position of Rabbi of the Western Wall in 1995 by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the chief rabbis of Israel following the death of Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz, his predecessor as Rabbi of the Wall.
In his role as Rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Rabinovitch is responsible for maintaining the site as a sacred religious prayer space in the Jewish tradition. The Western Wall is visited by individuals of diverse backgrounds. Rabbi Rabinovitch navigates the Wall's use a religious prayer site with the interests of the civic programs of the secular Israeli state, visits by state dignitaries, religious leaders of other faiths, and diaspora liberal Jewish groups. Twice a year, Rabinovitch and his staff collect the thousands of prayer notes placed in the Wall, which they consider and treat as sacred writing that may not be disposed of with common trash, and bury them in the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
Rabinovitch has maintained the historic and traditional gender separation at the Wall, conforming to orthodox Jewish practice. In 2009, he authorized the arrest of a female political activist praying in the custom of diaspora liberal Judaism with a tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl considered men's clothing in Judaism, and holding a Sefer Torah. Rabbi Rabinowitz saw the political action as "...an act of provocation that seeks to turn the Western Wall into disputed territory... A prayer that causes contention and desecration of the sanctity of the Western Wall has no value. It is an act of protest".
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Wikipedia