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| Israeli chief rabbi pledges loyalty to state | ||
| 2005-09-23 | ||
| In a surprise break from his fierce opposition to disengagement and his support of calls for the refusal of IDF evacuation orders, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, urged members of the national religious camp on Thursday to remain loyal to the state and the army. This view stands in stark contrast to that espoused by a group of settlement rabbis – such as Zalman Melamed of Beit El, Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, Elyakim Levanon of Elon Moreh and David Dudkevitch of Yitzhar – who see as their leader former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira. In the name of Shapira, these rabbis are calling for a radical revamping of the relationship between religious and secular Zionists. Eliahu's equanimity, in his first interview with the press since disengagement, was a striking departure from his own previous adamant opposition to the pullout, which he had called a "curse from heaven." Eliahu has been criticized by religious Zionist rabbis for promising thousands of his followers, many of whom are former residents of the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, that disengagement would never happen. Asked what he had to say to those settlers who suffered material losses, because they believed his promises and did not pack up their belongings or cooperate with the government, Eliahu replied: "From the beginning I always said to the settlers that they need to act according to their level of confidence in God. Someone who is afraid, I said, should evacuate and leave and do what he thinks is right. Someone with more confidence in God should pack but not leave and someone with even more confidence should not even pack." Eliahu said he did not believe a second disengagement was on the horizon. "People need to understand that Land of Israel is holy and not like other countries in the world," he said. "It is holy since God chose to give it to the Jewish people. How can you give it away?" He said that disengagement was God's way of telling the Jewish people to "re-engage."
Eliahu called on all the religious and right-wing parties to join forces and create a right-wing religious bloc. Regarding the continued settlement of the Land of Israel, Eliahu said people should not go settle vacant hilltops without the approval of the IDF. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 About bloody time. He should be ashamed that he even made it a question. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-09-23 11:52 |