‘Future Chief Rabbi’ at Ohel

By COLlive reporter

When elections were held in 2003 for the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, many insiders said that the post was Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman‘s if he only the ‘Disco Rabbi’ from Migdal Haemek wanted it.

He didn’t. Or more accurately, his father didn’t.

A sixth generation Jerusalemite, his father Rabbi Yisroel Grossman, an anti Zionist, had asked him to reject the many requests he has gotten to run for the supreme religious position of the State of Israel.

Rabbi Grossman enjoys public recognition in the country as the founder of the Migdal Ohr educational institutions which helps orphans and drug addicts. He regularly visits jails and bars to encouraging them to live the Torah way.

In an interview last week with an Israeli website, the rabbi said “I am not ruling out a candidacy for Chief Rabbi of Israel.”

“In the 2003 elections I rejected the offer. Now I’m not refusing the idea. I say, we’ll wait and see what will be,” he said.

In reference to his father’s request, he said: “At the time, my father, zecher tzaddik livracha, didn’t not agree that I should run. But at the same time he said that in the next time, when the time comes, I should consult with the rabbis and listen to their decision.”

Rabbi Yisroel Grossman passed away in 2007.

Elections are expected to be held in 2013.

On the day of the announcement of what many see as a possible run, a COLlive.com reader has photographed Rabbi Grossman praying at the Rebbe‘s Ohel gravesite in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York.

Rabbi Grossman’s niece was Mrs. Rivky Holtzberg (nee Rosenberg), the Chabad Shlucha in Mumbai who was murdered with her husband Rabbi Gabi and other Jews in their Chabad House in 2008.