Jerusalem District Court Judge Moshe Yoed Hacohen on Thursday rejected the prosecution’s plea deal with former chief rabbi Yona Metzger, ruling that the deal – three and a half years in prison – was not sever enough, and so he added a year, making the sentence four and a half years.
Last month, Metzger and the prosecution signed a plea deal according to which the former chief rabbi would admit receiving bribes, serve three and a half years in jail and pay five million shekel ($1,354,000) which includes forfeiture of an apartment he owns, a fine and paying his tax debt.
The most scandalous of the six indictment items against the former chief rabbi had to do with his selling conversions in the US, in collaboration with Rabbi Gavriel Cohen who served as head of a Los Angeles Beit Din. The prosecution charged that the two rabbis had a deal to split the profits.
This violation stings the deepest, since in the dispute between Haredim and the National Religious in Israel over the post of chief rabbis, the Haredi argument has consistently been that a National Religious chief rabbi would lighten the requirements for conversion.
Perhaps, but he certainly won’t sell them…