Last update - 00:00 24/09/2007
Sephardic, Ashkenazi rabbis at odds over 'shmita' ban bypass
By Amiram Cohen, Haaretz Correspondent
Sephardic and Ashkenazi rabbis were at odds Monday over a decision to allow the sale of fruit and vegetables during the year that Jewish tradition stipulates land in Israel should remain uncultivated.
Rabbi Avraham Yosef okayed the procedure known as "heiter mechira" in which Jewish farmers nominally sell their land to non-Jews for a year in order to bypass the septennial ban on growing agricultural products known as "Shmita."
Rabbinical sources were quoted as saying approval of the procedure was a "declaration of war on the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox rabbis and their leader, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv."
Yosed, who is the son of the Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, authorized the "Heiter Mechira" that was first used towards the end of the 19th century to allow Jewish farmers to sell their products and save them from bankruptcy.
Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi and some Sephardic rabbis, however, refuse to recognize "heiter mechira" and forbid supermarket chains to market agricultural products that do not receive their seal of approval as kosher.
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