## Facts

- Israeli law recognized the office of a city chief rabbi and set a statutory procedure for selecting a chief rabbi through an elective assembly.
- The elective assembly was composed of representatives from three groups: the city council, the local religious council, and local synagogues.
- In Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the city council was required to choose its own representatives to sit on the elective assembly that would select the city’s chief rabbi.
- The governing framework did not expressly bar women from serving as city-council representatives on the elective assembly.
- A dispute arose within the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council over whether women council members could be appointed to the council’s delegation.
- The city council ultimately decided not to appoint any women as its representatives to the elective assembly, even though women served on the council.
- The city council justified the exclusion by pointing to anticipated reactions: concern that the national chief rabbi would not cooperate with a city chief rabbi elected by an assembly that included women, and concern that strong candidates might refuse to stand for election if women participated.
- Poraz petitioned the High Court of Justice, arguing that the council’s categorical exclusion of women was unlawful and an improper use of the council’s statutory appointment power.

## Issues

1. Whether a city council exercising statutory discretion to appoint representatives to the elective assembly for selecting a city chief rabbi may categorically exclude women when the law does not require such exclusion.
2. Whether anticipated resistance by religious authorities or potential candidates is a valid consideration that can justify excluding women from the council’s delegation.

## Decision

- The High Court granted the petition and invalidated the city council’s decision to exclude women from its delegation to the elective assembly.
- The Court held that the city council’s appointment discretion must be exercised in line with public-law requirements, including the duty to act fairly and without unlawful discrimination.
- The Court rejected reliance on predicted third-party opposition (from religious officials or potential candidates) as a lawful basis for a blanket exclusion of women from participation in the statutory selection body.
- The city council was required to make its appointments in a manner consistent with the law’s purpose and with equality, rather than by imposing a categorical gender-based bar.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory discretion to make public appointments is constrained by general principles of public law, including equality and fair consideration of eligible candidates.
- Where the relevant legal scheme does not authorize gender exclusion, a public authority may not create a blanket rule barring women from an official representative function.
- Administrative decisions are unlawful when based on irrelevant considerations or on a purpose inconsistent with the statute, including accommodating discriminatory preferences or threatened noncooperation by others.
- A public authority cannot justify discrimination by pointing to expected discriminatory reactions from third parties; yielding to such pressure is not a lawful ground for excluding a protected group from public participation.

## Conclusion

Poraz held that Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s city council could not use its statutory power to appoint representatives to the rabbinical electoral assembly to impose a categorical exclusion of women, and that fears of opposition by religious authorities or candidates could not legitimize discrimination in the composition of a public, legally created selection body.


Poraz v. City Council of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, HCJ 953/87, 42(2) PD 309 (1988)