The purpose of this study is to gather, sift, analyze and evaluate the available source material pertaining to the emergence of the Chief Rabbinate as an official institution in the Land of Israel. The analysis is more of an historical one than a sociological one. It is not pre-occupied with persent conditions as much as with past occurrences, which have prepared the ground for the present situation. It concluded with the Mandatory period. The division of the chapters, too, follows a chronological as well as topical pattern.