On Sunday, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was appointed as the United Kingdom’s new chief rabbi.

Rabbi Mirvis is the Britain’s 11th chief rabbi.

Besides being a congregational rabbi, Rabbi Mirvis previously served as the chief rabbi of Ireland from 1985 to 1992.

Rabbi Mirvis was born in South Africa in 1956. He moved to Israel in 1973, where he learned in Yeshiva Keren B’Yavneh, followed by Yeshivat Har Etzion, finally receiving his Smicha (ordination) at Machon Ariel in Jerusalem in 1980.

Rabbi Mirvis also has a BA in Education and Classical Hebrew, and to top it off is also a Shochet and Mohel.

Britain’s chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, is blaming British Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to do enough to boost marriages in the UK, and saying multiculturalism in Britain has “had its day,” The Times reported.

Rabbi Sacks said Cameron should recognize marriage in the tax system and do more to support stay at home mothers.

“I think the government has not done enough,” he said. “Although I don’t take a political stance … I don’t think the government has done enough at all.”

Rabbi Sacks, who retires next month after 22 years, said the estimated £9 billion-a-year cost of family breakdown and “non-marriage” meant the state has a direct interest in promoting marriage.

Rabbi Sacks also said multiculturalism in Britain had led to “segregation and inward-looking communities.”

Comparing it to a hotel where “nobody is at home,” he said: “It doesn’t belong to anyone, we’ve each got our own room and so long as we don’t disturb the neighbors we can do whatever we like.”

Rabbi Ratzon Arusi withdrew his candidacy for Chief Sephardi Rabbi, one hour before balloting began Wednesday afternoon. His withdrawal leaves three candidates in the race.

On Tuesday, Be’er Sheva Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri and Jerusalem Rabbinical Court head Rabbi Eliyahu Abergel quit the race. The remaining candidates are Hazon Ovadia yeshiva Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, son of former Chief Rabbi and Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef; High Rabbinical Court Judge Zion Boaron; and Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu.

Supporters of Rabbi Arusi, Chief Rabbi of the metropolitan Tel Aviv city of Kiryat Ono,  are likely to vote for Rabbi Boaron.

If all goes well, the 150 person committee, made up of rabbis, politicians, and rabbinic judges may select two new chief rabbis for Israel today, one Ashkenazi, and one Sephardi.

The race to the top has been considered very ugly this time around, as it’s about more than just about selecting a new chief rabbi or two. This race is the battleground between the National-Religious and Secular on one side, and the Ultra-Orthodox on the other, on what face the Rabbinate will have for the next 10 years.

There are a lot of candidates, and its not clear at this point, who, if anyone, has the best shot at the title.

The results will be announced at 8 PM tonight.

In an interesting development, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua), and Religious Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) are working together to implement MK Moshe Feiglin’s (Likud) plan to only have one chief rabbi next time around.

In their version of the proposal, there are still Ashkenazi and Sephardic candidates, but one will be the chief rabbi, while the other will be president of the High Rabbinic Court.

Today: hand kissing, why, when, where, who, and, most important: what the heck?

Former minister of Social Affairs and former Minister of Communications Moshe Kachlon (on the right, kissing) was the Sephardi poster child of the former Likud government. He was a star, who introduced real competition among cell phone providers that brought down rates in a significant way. Now he’s no longer a star, in fact, he’s been a bit on the forgotten side.

Rabbi Zion Boaron (being kissed) is candidate for the position for chief Sephardi rabbi, in a crowded field. He has the backing of the current chief rabbi, Rav Amar, for the position. It’s understandable that he would also want on his side someone as popular as Kachlon. In short, looks like a match made in heaven. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that Rabbi Boaron is not the kind of modern, moderate, open minded rabbi one would expect someone like Moshe Kachlon to back. I’m not saying he shouldn’t back him, I’m just saying there’s a whiff of political posturing here, in fact, more than a whiff, almost an odor.

Rabbi Boaron’s positions are complex.

Rabbi Boaron, who serves as a rabbinic judge on the Rabbinic Supreme Court, opposes unisex work places, the Haredi draft, women’s organizations, and Haredi women suing their husbands for divorce in rabbinic courts. Mind you, he has well founded, even logical reasons for each one of his positions, and they all make sense. But moderate and modern they ain’t.

On the other hand, Rabbi Boaron has received open letters of support from women’s organizations such as Yad Laisha and Mavoi Satum for his “tireless effort” in working to help women receive their ‘gets’ (Jewish bills of divorce), as well as his halachic rulings on the matter that have helped women break free of their Agunot status. His actions included flying around to remote corners of the world to personally track down and convince recalcitrant husbands to divorce their wives.

In the area of conversion, he declared the “Bnei Menashe” to be of Jewish descent, which helped them finally immigrate to Israel. His approach to conversion is halachic, but with a moderate approach, in order to try to reduce intermarriage and assimilation.

He will probably also support the Heter Mechira leniency in the upcoming Shmittah year.

And unlike many other Sephardic Rabbis, Rabbi Boaron does not see himself as subordinate to Rav Ovadiah Yosef, and rejected Shas’s request that he drop out of the race.

Like we said, complex.

So, why the sudden shidduch? I believe we’ll find out soon enough.

Attorney General Weinstein told Tzfat Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu that the courts probably would not allow him to be Chief Sephardi Rabbi have not dissuaded him from continuing his campaign for the post.

Weinstein wrote the rabbi that his controversial statements, such as, “Must I explain why I am against mixed marriages?, “a number of serial killers have turned out to be homosexuals” and remarks that people in Tzfat should not rent or sell apartments to Arabs would likely not pass the courts if he were to be elected as Chief Rabbi.

The electing body is to vote in approximately three weeks.

Weinstein said the rabbi is an “unsuitable candidate” but did not rule he is not allowed to run.

Rabbi Eliyahu responded harshly through a spokesman, who wrote, “The Attorney General chose erev Tisha B’Av to remove his biased mask to suppress democracy. It seems the same attorney general who justified his grave acts of Knesset Members against Israeli soldiers and has given support to the  head of the Islamic Movement also has court martialed Rabbi Eliyahu and has made himself the prosecutor to and hanging judge.

“Weinstein understood that a majority of the electing body is ready to choose Rabbi Eliyahu as Chief Rabbi and  has decided to break the rules with an unprecedented step, without authority and without a hearing or verifying allegations.

Poland’s chief rabbi said he will resign if a definitive ban on kosher slaughter is imposed in the country.

“I cannot imagine serving as chief rabbi in a country in which the rights of the Jewish religion are curtailed, as I would not be able then to serve properly my coreligionists,” Rabbi Michael Schudrich wrote on his Facebook page. “This obviously is not a threat, for whom would I threaten, but a statement of an obvious fact. If the legality of ritual slaughter will not be reinstituted in a legitimate way, I will be obliged to resign from my function.”

The American-born Schudrich, who has worked in Poland for more than two decades, has served as Poland’s chief rabbi since 2004. Before that he was rabbi to the Warsaw Jewish community and director of the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation in Poland.

The lower house of Poland’s parliament last Friday rejected a government-sponsored draft law that would have legalized Jewish ritual slaughter, or shechitah, in Poland, by a 222-178 vote.

Poland had allowed shechitah until earlier this year, making about $650 million annually by exporting kosher and halal meat to Israel and Muslim-majority countries. But in January, acting on a petition filed by animal rights groups, a constitutional court ruled that the country has no right to allow religious slaughter.

After much jockeying and infighting, it appears that Shas has finally chosen its candidate for Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. Among the candidates were former Chief Rabbi, Rav Ovadia Yosef’s two sons, as well as Shas leader Arieh Deri’s brother, and the brother of Shas MK Ariel Attias.

In the end Shas chose Rav Ovadiah’s younger son, Rav Yitzchak Yosef to be their candidate. Rav Yitzchak is considered to be a scholar. He is also the son-in-law of the current Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.

Rav Amar has been pushing for the appointment of his long time study partner Rav Boaron. Rabbi Boaron is a judge on the Rabbinical Supreme Court in Jerusalem.

What may have helped Rav Ovadia in his decision to select Rav Yitzchak and not his older son, Rav Avraham Yosef, was the investigation that was just opened against him,.