Israel – Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger criticized police for summoning for questioning Rabbi Yaakov Yosef and Rabbi Dov Lior regarding their endorsements of the controversial book, “The Torah of the King.” The book deals with the laws of killing non-Jews during war-time, and its author, Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira, is under police investigation connected with it. In an early morning raid on his house last month, Rabbi Shapira was arrested and over 30 copies of his book were taken. He was released after several hours.
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Rabbi Metzger said on Voice of Israel Radio this morning that a rabbi should not have to be interrogated by police for his endorsement or blessing of a Halakhic (Jewish legal) book. Rabbi Metzger said, “Israeli professors traveling abroad openly criticize Israel and the IDF and are protected by freedom of expression, so why are rabbis in Israel not protected by the same freedom of expression as well?”
He said that the police should have first approached the chief rabbis of Israel to ask them the significance of an approbation for a book in our generation. He said he was confident that after hearing the rabbis’ professional opinion, the police would not have decided to investigate Rabbis Lior and Yosef. 
Neither Rabbi Lior nor Rabbi Yosef arrived at police headquarters for their scheduled questionings. “The Torah is not open to investigation,” the rabbis wrote. “The attempts to stop Israel’s rabbis from expressing their Torah opinions through fear and threats is a grave act and will not succeed.”
Fifty rabbis have signed a letter of support for the rabbis, and on Wednesday this week, a conference will be held in Jerusalem to support the “independence of the Torah.”
There should be no tolerance of “speculation” regarding the legitimacy of the murder or slaughter of goyim under any circumstances and those who engage in such hate crimes should not be able to invoke “daas torah” as an excuse for spouting such garbage. The police were acting correctly when they put this rav in jail for investigation. They should do the same for a professor or anyone else engaging in such blood langauge
Before giving this rav any legitimacy, read some of the excerpts from his book. He is either mamash a lunatic for writing some of this stuff or is provoking yidden to violence. Either way, he is scary.
I do not agree with the rebbies but they can say what they want they say
mamash like the yevonim! If it wasnt so sad it would be funny
Who is supposed to determine whether his book is a “Torah opinion” or stam an idiot’s opinion? Should we have a rabbinical counsel in Israel the orders the government when they cannot prosecute someone who “opines” that murder of Arabs is not wrong. Maybe we am learn from Iran and have a supreme religious leader to run the government.
what an excellent point the rabbi makes. killing an enemy during war time is a mitzvah excepted and understood the world over(except when israel does it of course). however the speech of many of these lefty pprofessors is crosses the line from protected free speech to sedition and treason.
Police should also approach KKK clergymen and ask for their “professional opinions” on Antisemitic or racist books. Metzger should be fired if he is defending crazy rabbis who promote books on killing of non Jews halachacly. Wahabi Islamic scholars also write opinions on when and how it is OK to kill a non-Muslim.
Israel better get a grip on radicalization of Judaism or else we will have our own kosher Al Quida in a decade running around in Jerusalem killing non Jews, reform Jews, non Charedi Jews all because some rabbis write books justifying killing of others according to “halacha.”
did you leran rambam hilchos melochim which is psak halach based on the talmud sanhedrin which is from the torah (last 2-3 parhious)your ‘garbage.’..its beyond me how a torah site allows such kefirah posts here
All you “I do not agree”s or “I’m very smart” or “Giving this rav any legitimacy” Is just stupid! 50 rabbis think different than your and my small mindedness and have publicly said so. So in order for us to even state our minds is like the patient recovering slowly from a stroke and people just not seeing anything coming over saying “he’s not gonna make it”.
#1) before stating anything, especially if it’s only for “I know it all better than anyone” should ask themselves, there are sooo many people with different opinions, who we all know for certain dont consider killing any human anything more than sheva mitzvas b’nei noach, which commands against killing ANYBODY! Gentile same as Jew! This rabbi who published this thing, would definitely not get any support if what all you anti semitic, self hating jews, would be true (being that every human is protected by these noahide laws!) this rabbi would never get any support! let alone from a chief rabbi!
Go to another religion and stop bashing our cherished commandments and religion just so that you can feel “ahhhh I’m better then them” without giving any support to your claims. orthodox jews wont contradict us, they have no internet….
I have no idea what this book says, so I am making it clear that I am NOT commenting on the contents of the book, rather I am commenting on what seems to be the feeling of other comments here.
Remember, the Torah clearly does differentiate between the murder of a Jew and the murder of a non-Jew.
If saying that the threshold of murder of a Jew and a non-Jew is hate speech, then it is time to rethink your Judaism.
Did Hashem preach “Hate” when he ordered the annihilation of Amalek?
As an aside, it does seem sad that Muslims in America have better backing from the government than the Rabbis get from their government in Israel.
#7 it so happens that hashem tells us about the wars that were needed to fight,it’s in this week parsha,the obitgated and non-obitgated wars,you can look this up yourself
There are a lot of stuff in the Torah that are very controversial, but it doesn’t mean rabbis need to write specific books on killing of non Jews according to Halacha in today’s crazy world. If anyone, for bizarre reasons, wants to learn detailed halachos on murder of Jews v. non Jews let them open up the Talmud and speak to their havrusa. People point at the Koran as a vicious book filled with violence and hate for Jews; there are verses in Koran about killing Jews and Kafirs. Do we need radical rabbis to tarnish Torah in eyes of the world and make it look like the Koran? Is there be a difference between killing goyim in Talmud and killing kafirs in Koran when others will read it?
Where was Metzger defending Rabbi Slifkin, from the Daas Torah mafia, when he wrote an intellectual, thought provoking book on evolution and Torah?? No one was defending freedom of speech of this rabbi from other rabbis who destroyed his reputation for no good reasons. Metzger and others demand freedom of speech only when the Israeli Government comes after some extremists, but they were all silent when they themselves silence other rabbis whose opinions are not popular or controversial.
#14 ‘torah controversial’? huh ‘endarkened ‘yid’.. lets be clear,there is no intelectual hought provoking thesiwhen it agains torah . and about the rest if you believe in the enteral g-d and his torah thers is no refraining to write what is said vayigbor libo bedarchai hasem. accordinge toy u we should burn the talmud ,ambam etc etc sheygetx arois
May I suggest that it makes sense to learn the sefer itself before making comments about its contents. The “quotes” that have been published in the press are deliberately taken out of context, exactly the same way the maskilim used to distort Torah and tried to get Chassidish Rebbes arrested. The maskilim’s descendants are going after Rabbi Ginsburgh’s talmidim in exactly the same way, rachmana letzlan.
#14
Disgustingly horrible reform (if jewish at all) The torah is not controversial, rather you and your movement are! and in order to quite your guilty conscious you say the torah is controversial. Looks like amalek and erev rav is still live and kikin.
enlightened,obviously this sefer was written now because the idf feels pressure from the “international community” every time it has to fight arabs rl. phrases such as proportional response etc come to mind,whatever that means.the job of any army is to defend it’s citizenry and territory,whatever it takes.