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.
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.”
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.
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