After eight years without a municipal rabbi, Tel Aviv elected one on Sunday: Shas candidate Rabbi Zevadia Cohen, whose distance from Israel’s secular capital is roughly the distance from Tel Aviv to Tehran.

The jobs machine run by Shas and United Torah Judaism did not begin in Tel Aviv, and it will not stop there. After years of stagnation in appointing local rabbis, Shas has engineered the appointment of a string of rabbis in its own image: ultra-Orthodox and draft-dodging. These appointments extend to a number of other liberal cities as well. But the reality of recent decades shows that there is no demand for these rabbis or their services.

It is time to abolish this redundant office and allow councils that still want a rabbi to fund one from municipal coffers.

Israel has about 170 official positions for city and local council rabbis. Roughly a third of the city-rabbi posts are unfilled, some for many years. The same is true for local authorities. Beyond these, there are another 300 or so rabbis of towns and communities whose salaries are partly funded by the........

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