Photo: Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, the Israel Defense Forces' chief rabbi.
Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov "Jack" Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other "political/ideological" murderers.
True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them.
The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.
Is that so? Not really.
For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies "because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us ... it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly ... we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents."
Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.
Their spiritual leader stated in his book, "Torat Hamelekh" that "a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them."
A brochure distributed in Judean and Samarian communities stated that "needless to say that nowhere in the book does it state that these remarks are aimed only at gentiles in ancient times."
The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible," wrote the rabbi and adds, "and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect."
Not long ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications.
The minister surely has reservations about the rabbi's publications.
He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
Water down the drain
Prof. Raphael Semiat, the head of the Technion's Grand Water Research Institute in Haifa, took the trouble to travel to Jerusalem and come to the Knesset to participant in a forum organized by MK Miri Regev (Likud) to discuss the water shortage and the drought tax.
He left the meeting with same feeling he has had since last spring: the Finance Ministry continues to mismanage the situation and the public continues to pay the cost.
He says that the Finance Ministry representative presented his controversial position (Semiat used a less parliamentary phrase), and then left without listening to the professor's harsh criticism.
"The Finance Ministry has for years not made it possible to take vital steps to save the water situation," Semiat chided those present, "and it has the chutzpah to demand that the public pay the price of its shortcomings."
Last May 28 researchers from the Grand Water Research Institute, all of whom are either professors or doctors, sent a letter to all cabinet ministers and senior officials who have anything to do with the water issue, from the Finance Ministry to the National Infrastructure Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry to the Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry.
The researchers listed a series of measures that could be taken to add at least 100-150 million cubic meters of water to the economy annually within a few months.
That amount is equivalent to the amount of water desalinated at each of the big desalination plants in Ashkelon and Hadera per year.
It is hard to believe, but none of the ministers and none of the officials responded to the letter.
Instead of providing water, they are offering a whole lot of excuses, some of them untrue.
The most notable among them is that the state does not have the budget to finance new desalination plants, this at a time when the state's primary expenditure is publishing tenders in the media; everything else is covered by the winners of the tenders.
Here is a selection of the quick solutions proposed by the Grand Water Research Institute's researchers that were not considered by the authorities and which according to Technion experts could with one to two months restore around 20 million cubic meters of water annually to the economy:
Switching from using tens of millions of cubic meters of drinking water annually for paving and roadwork to the use of treated sewage water.
More efficient use of purified sewage water designated for agricultural uses (currently around 30 percent of purified sewage water flows into the sea).
Use of available technologies for recycling water for gardening and toilet flushing.
Prof. Semiat warns that continuing mismanagement will lead to a disaster.
He explains that even if the winter benefits the water level of Lake Kinneret, and it fills completely, the lake provides no more than 30 percent of the state's water consumption.
In the meantime the salinity of the aquifer waters, which supplies most of the water consumption, is increasing daily.
Guess who will pay the price for this debacle?
IDF Chief Rabbi: Troops who show mercy to enemy will be 'damned'
The Israel Defense Forces' chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who "show mercy" toward the enemy in wartime will be "damned."
Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki also told the yeshiva students that religious individuals made better combat troops.
Speaking Thursday at the Hesder yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron , Rontzki referred to Maimonides' discourse on the laws of war. That text quotes a passage from the Book of Jeremiah stating: "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord with a slack hand, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."
In Rontzki's words, "In times of war, whoever doesn't fight with all his heart and soul is damned - if he keeps his sword from bloodshed, if he shows mercy toward his enemy when no mercy should be shown."
Rontzki's remarks came during a ceremony to celebrate a new Torah scroll at the yeshiva. The service was held in commemoration of Yosef Fink, one of two yeshiva students kidnapped by Hezbollah in 1986.
Their bodies were returned 10 years later in a prisoner exchange.
Rontzki also referred specifically to the Israel Defense Forces' conduct during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. "Apropos all that we've heard in the media of late, thank God that the people of Israel has united recently around the simple understanding of how it must fight. One of the major innovations of that offensive was the conduct of war - not as some kind of mission or detention."
"We all remember the beginning of the war, with a major attack of 80 planes bombing various places, and then artillery, mortar and tank fire and so forth, as in war," he said. "Everyone fought with all their heart and soul, and that includes bravery of course, but also fighting with all the resources one has - to fight as if to truly determine the mission."
Rontzki also referred to the qualities of the ideal combat soldier.
"In Israel's wars, warriors are God-fearing people, righteous people, people who don't have sins on their hands," he said. "One needs to fight with an understanding of what one is fighting for."
Chabad rabbi: Jews should kill Arab men, women and children during war
Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.
But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.
"The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)," Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its "Ask the Rabbis" feature.
Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be "no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war."
"I don't believe in Western morality," he wrote. "Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention."
Friedman's use of phrasing that might seem more familiar coming from an Islamic extremist has generated a swift backlash. The editor of Moment, Nadine Epstein, said that since the piece was printed in the current issue they "have received many letters and e-mails in response to Rabbi Friedman's comments - and almost none of them have been positive."
Friedman quickly went into damage control. He released a statement to the Forward, through a Chabad spokesman, saying that his answer in Moment was "misleading" and that he does believe that "any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion."
But Friedman's words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman's hometown, St. Paul. Minnesota, said: "The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here."
"He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less," said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World.
"They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists."
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, "We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views."
But, Foxman warned, Friedman's views are not reflective of the Chabad rabbis he knows. "I am not shocked that there would be a rabbi who would have these views," Foxman said, "but I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad."
A few days after anger about the comment surfaced, Chabad headquarters released a statement saying that, "we vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war."
The statement added: "In keeping with Jewish law, it is the unequivocal position of Chabad-Lubavitch that all human life is G-d given, precious, and must be treated with respect, dignity and compassion."
In Moment, Friedman's comment is listed as the Chabad response to the question "How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?" after a number of answers from rabbis representing other Jewish streams, most of which state a conciliatory attitude toward Arabs.
Epstein said that Friedman was "brave" for stating his views so clearly.
"The American Jewish community doesn't have the chance to hear opinions like this," Epstein said, "not because they are rare, but because we don't often ask Chabad and other similar groups what they think."
The Chabad movement is generally known for its hawkish policies toward the Palestinians; the Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, rejected peace accords with the Palestinians. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the top Chabad rabbi in Minnesota, said that the rebbe taught that it is not a mitzvah to kill, but that Jews do have an obligation to act in self-defense.
"Jews as a whole, they try to save the lives of others," Feller told the Forward, "but if it's to save our lives, then we have to do what we have to do. It's a last resort."
Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was the English translator for the Chabad Rebbe, and at the rebbe's urging, he founded Beis Chana, a network of camps and schools for Jewish women. Friedman is also a popular speaker and writer on issues of love and relationships. His first book, "Doesn't Anyone Blush Anymore?" was promoted with a quote from Bob Dylan, who Friedman brought to meet the rebbe.
On his blog and Facebook page, Friedman's emphasis is on his sympathetic, caring side. It was this reputation that made the comment in Moment so surprising to Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council: Minnesota and the Dakotas.
"Rabbi Friedman is a best-selling author who addresses some of the most sensitive issues of the time," Hunegs said. "I intend to call him and talk to him about this."
But Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger and critic of Chabad who lives a few blocks from Friedman in Minnesota, says that the comment in Moment is not an aberration from his experiences with Friedman and many other Chabad rabbis.
"What he's saying is the standard normal view of a Chabadnik," Rosenberg said. "They just don't say it in public."
For his part, Friedman was quick to modify the statement that he wrote in Moment. He told the Forward that the line about killing women and children should have been in quotes; he said it is a line from the Torah, though he declined to specify from which part. Friedman also said that he was not advocating for Israel to actually kill women and children. Instead, he said, he believed that Israel should publicly say that it is willing to do these things in order to scare Palestinians and prevent war.
"If we took this policy, no one would be killed - because there would be no war," Friedman said. "The same is true of the United States."
Friedman did acknowledge, however, that in self-defense, the behavior he talked about would be permissible.
"If your children are threatened, you do whatever it takes - and you don't have to apologize," he said.
Friedman argued that he is different from Arab terrorists who have used similar language about killing Jewish civilians.
"When they say it, it's genocide, not self-defense," Friedman said. "With them, it's a religious belief - they need to rid the area of us. We're not saying that."
Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was "radical."
"I love him," Feller said. "I brought him out here - he's magnificent. He's brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes."
Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128767.html
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