In time the patriarchate and exilarchate disappeared, but the rabbinate, nourished by independent rabbinical academies, survived.
Sevi's promise of redemption conquered rich and poor, and much of the rabbinate too.
Of the 1m-plus immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have settled in Israel in the past two decades, some 300,000 are considered gentile by the Orthodox rabbinate, because, under the Orthodox interpretation, Jewishness is transmitted only through mothers.
The chief rabbinate, Israel's state religious authority, reluctantly began legitimising their marriages again after a recent order by Israel's Supreme Court, but it continues to argue that since Karaite rites are not Jewish, Karaites have lesser Jewish rights, too.
The Orthodox chief rabbinate was originally granted a monopoly over matters of personal status, such as conversion, marriage and burial, but Israel's supreme court has gradually eaten away at it.
Last month Israel's chief rabbinate proposed legislation denying all converts to Judaism the privilege, which they (along with born Jews) now enjoy, of claiming automatic Israeli citizenship under the "law of return".This seemingly self-defeating move after all, Israel always wants more Jews to immigrate stems from long-standing tension between Israel's religious and secular natures.
But his colleague Ziv Maor, a spokesman for Israel's chief rabbinate, argues that as head of the department of personal status and conversions, Rabbi Tubul plays as big a role in protecting the state as the Israel Defence Forces.
Those demands are no longer Meretz's alone: Mr Barak himself, anxious to woo the large and mostly secular Russian-immigrant community, recently proposed a legislative programme designed to bring about a "secular revolution" in Israel, radically eroding the power of the rabbinate to adjudicate in matters of personal status and sabbath observance.
Hating the rabbinate is part of these people's assimilation into Israeli society and culture".The biggest reason by far for hating rabbis, though, is the draft.
The rabbinate recently slapped a fine of 1,000 shekels ($280) on a Karaite butcher for calling his meat kosher.
The Law of Return also recognises conversions that the rabbinate rejects.
