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Denial of rights

שו”תCategory: HalachaDenial of rights
asked 8 years ago

Good morning,

I wanted to know your opinion on the issue of denying the rights of a minority within a community by voting.

A community that is identified as Anglo-Saxon (a large majority of community members immigrated from the US, Canada, Australia or England) is in the process of electing a rabbi for the community.
The candidate’s criteria are, of course, a rabbinical degree, noble qualities, etc.
But the possibility of bringing a rabbi who does not speak English arose.
Part of the community claims that this is perfectly fine, and the other part claims that since they cannot participate in classes, conversations, and consultations in Hebrew, it is not fair to bring in a rabbi who cannot provide them with community-spiritual services. (Deprivation of rights of members by majority decision)

Is the result of making a decision by majority vote in this matter problematic?
Is it ethical? Moral? Halakhic?

Regards


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
Hello. I don’t think there is a halachic answer here, but it certainly has ethical aspects. In principle, the community follows the majority. Although the method of the Rabbi and his party is that decisions in the community are only made unanimously. Although the Shulchan Aruch ruled that all the poskim are not like him. But ethically, it seems very reasonable to me that there is no room for the tyranny of the majority. Just as in a country, the majority does not always decide. If this decision significantly harms the minority and the advantage that this decision gives the majority is not decisive (after all, there are also other worthy rabbis who do know English), the minority’s objection should not be rejected. Of course, my assumption is that the lack of knowledge of English is a very significant harm (the minority’s knowledge of Hebrew does not allow them to communicate reasonably with the rabbi and understand his lessons-conversations, as you wrote). It is true that the majority can still decide, and then the minority is free to leave the community and look for another community that suits them. The question is what happens if the minority invested money in building the synagogue or in the community’s infrastructure, and if it leaves, it loses its investment. Here, perhaps there is room to leave and claim some kind of compensation in court or in the Bar (this requires halachic-legal examination. I am writing this just for food for thought). By the way, I think that if the majority is not willing to consider the minority in this way, the community is no longer a single community and may need to be divided.

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