With so many religious recruits joining the Mossad in recent years, Israel’s covert organization has added an official rabbi to counsel agents.
So many religious recruits have joined the Mossad in recent years that the organization has hired an official rabbi to advise agents and employees on a wide range of issues, a report said Monday.
Mossad’s Emblem – Israel news photo
Among the questions the rabbi deals with are those relating to religious practices, keeping kosher, Sabbath observance, and other matters that may require compromise or adjustment regarding Jewish Law on the part of an agent during a mission.
Speaking to Ma’ariv, a Mossad source said that “there are many religious people in the Mossad, and that number has grown quite a bit in recent years. In the past, the IDF Chief Rabbi would advise agents, but with the larger number of employees here the Mossad realized that it needs its own rabbi.”
What can an agent carry of Shabbat? – Photo: IsraelandStuff/PP
Besides rulings on personal obligations of Jewish law, the rabbi discusses tactics and methods of operation with agents, in order to reassure them that they are operating as closely to the ritual and ethical mandates of Jewish law as possible. “There are many questions beyond the ritual ones that crop up,” the official said.
Naturally, as an employee of an organization that survives on secrecy, the identity of the rabbi is top-secret. However, the source said, the rabbi was in the past a member of the IDF Rabbinate.
View original Arutz Sheva publication at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/177559#.UwIQRoVIVgh
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