The circular: Call for revenge?
Photo:Gil Yochanan
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s son: We must repay our enemies in kind
Less than a day after publication of reports that rabbis are granting halachic sanction to harm Arabs, various right-wing rabbis publish circular urging followers to ‘fight the enemy tit for tat’
On Wednesday, several right-wing rabbis, including the son of Shas party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, published circulars appearing in Jerusalem and West Bank settlements calling on followers to “fight the enemy tit for tat and blow for blow. They have no compassion for us, so we must feel none for them”.
The circular, entitled "The Torah’s Viewpoint Revealed", was written following the gruesome terror attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem ;ast Thursday. It was signed by numerous rabbis from the extreme Right, including Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, who once served as an MK with the Shas party.
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In spite of the circular’s unabashedly militant message, urging followers to retaliate against terror attacks in kind, David Drukman, Kiryat Motzkin’s Chief Rabbi, who signed the document, insists that it is no way a call for violent action. “We in no fashion want anyone to take the law into their own hands and create anarchy.”
“This was a simple and understandable plea in all respects,” said Drukman. Mainly , he stated, it urges followers to rely more on Jewish labor and hire Jewish workers. "Its intent wasn’t as narrow and specific as left-wingers would like to believe….It was in no way a call for vigilantism in any way, shape or form.”
For the most part the circular is a vehement attack on the current government:”Proper Jewish leadership should abide by the guidelines highlighted in the Shulchan Aruch (a prominent Jewish religious text) whereby Jews are obligated to resist non-Jews who attempt to attack them either in person or property,” reads the circular. “Any show of weakness, after all, only invites further bloodshed and violence.”
Moreover, the rabbis urge the current Israeli leadership to launch an all out war against the terrorists attacking Israel. “True Jewish leaders realize when it is necessary to go to war in order to justly defend the Jewish people, who are God’s people, and the Jewish homeland, which is God’s own dominion, from foes wishing to destroy them.”
