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Baron Cohen for Chief Rabbi!

You can bet on it (literally)

by
Marc Tracy
January 13, 2011
English actor Sacha Baron Cohen (playing Kazakh documentarian Borat Sagdiyev).(IMDB)
English actor Sacha Baron Cohen (playing Kazakh documentarian Borat Sagdiyev).(IMDB)

An Irish betting house will take your action if you think you know who will replace Jonathan Sacks as Great Britain’s chief rabbi when Sacks retires in 2013 after what has already been a two-decade-long tenure.

Paddy’s Power, the bookie, has fairly tight odds on nine rabbis—the favorite, Harvey Belovski, is pegged at 6:4. But if you want to go beyond the men who are likely to actually receive the job, there are a couple interesting longshots. David Miliband, the former foreign secretary and brother of the current Labour Party leader, is at 500:1. So is the one woman on the list, television personality Vanessa Feltz. And if you bet $1 on Sacha Baron Cohen, and he is selected, you win $500. I mean, it seems silly not to.

Next Chief Rabbi [Paddy’s Power]
Britain’s Next Top Rabbi [Forward]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.