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Rabbi Dov Lior
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Hanoch Daum
Photo: Rafi Deloya

What’s with the rabbis?

Op-ed: Is there correlation between radical rightist positions, chauvinistic, primitive views?

Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Dov Lior believe they are doing the right thing.

 

One of them published a book ruling that according to Jewish law there is no fundamental reason not to kill gentiles, while the other told students in a class he led at his community that women would do well to stay away from working as lawyers, citing the dictum that “all glorious is the princess within,” or something like that.

 

Yet every time rabbis are able to voice such primitive statements, one cannot but wonder about the connection between radical political, irresponsible views and chauvinistic, twisted religious edicts.

 

Somehow, it appears that these rabbis, who also call on their followers to refuse military orders, resist the army, and abuse Palestinians are the very same rabbis whose religious edicts usually ignore the fact that the status of women has changed in the last 1,000 years, and that the days where women were disqualified from serving as witnesses have passed from this world.

 

One of these days, we need to embark and an in-depth, academic effort to look into the connection between an unbalanced Jewish law attitude that discriminates against women and radical rightist views.

 

Yet until this issue is properly looked into, we can only thank God that there are other kinds of rabbis in Israel as well.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.21.10, 13:38
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