Jerusalem – The arrest of a prominent Israeli settler rabbi who endorsed a book sanctioning the killing of non-Jews under some conditions is sharpening the battle lines between some Jewish religious sages and the Israeli government.
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After Rabbi Dov Lior, spiritual leader of the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank, was detained and brought in for police questioning, hundreds of his followers, most of them teenagers, went on a rampage. Other rabbis fulminated against the idea that a rabbi could be arrested at all.
On the other side, secular Israelis complained that some rabbis in Israel think they are above the law.
Lior, a longtime symbol of religious and nationalist extremism, was brought in for questioning Monday after his car was stopped on a West Bank road. Lior, who was freed after a brief interrogation, accused officers of “Bolshevik” tactics.
Joining critics of his own government’s action, the Minister of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Margi, raged that the rabbi, who is in his late 70s, was “abducted on his way to Jerusalem like the lowest criminal.”
Lior was brought in Monday after ignoring a series of official police orders to report for interrogation.
His arrest angered supporters as a mark of disrespect for a venerated scholar.
Hundreds of disciples tried to block the road to the entrance to the city, snarling traffic at afternoon rush hour. Others tried to attack the Supreme Court. Hundreds besieged the home of a government official they thought was responsible for the arrest warrant.
The warrant had been pending for months in connection with a preface Lior wrote in support of a book, “The King’s Teachings.” The book quotes some religious sages as permitting, under certain conditions, the killing of non-Jews, including babies, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.”
Police wanted to question Lior over the possibility that his endorsement of the book was incitement to murder.
Backers accused authorities of assaulting Lior’s freedom of speech and complained that inflammatory statements by leftists against nationalist Israelis did not draw similar sanctions.
Critics of Lior and his camp saw a sign that some rabbis and their followers believe that secular law does not apply to them.
“Those who favor freedom of expression will of course find it difficult to accept as self evident the arrest of a person, any persona, for things that he said or wrote,” read an editorial in Wednesday’s Haaretz newspaper.
“But from the moment that the police decided to summon Rabbi Dov Lior to an investigation, he should have reported, even if he is firmly opposed to doing so, and taken advantage of every legitimate way of protesting against the claims against him,” Haaretz wrote, calling for Lior’s dismissal from his official, state-paid positions.
The Jerusalem Post wrote it was not clear that Lior committed a crime.
“He has, however, placed his rabbinic reputation behind a morally repugnant book” with “far-reaching and horrid implications, particularly in wartime settings,” the newspaper said.
Lior told reporters afterward that he ignored the police orders to report for questioning because he considered them illegitimate.
Although respected in the religious nationalist community, Lior’s teachings and commentaries have made him a polarizing figure in Israel for decades.
Following a shooting attack on a Jerusalem seminary in 2008, he ruled that Jewish law forbids employing and renting homes to Palestinians. He also praised Baruch Goldstein, the American immigrant doctor who massacred 29 Palestinians at a religious shrine in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994.
Some rabbis have repudiated “The King’s Teachings,” which doesn’t explicitly mention Arabs or Palestinians.
On Wednesday, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported that a sequel to “The King’s Teachings” was in the works. Its author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, said he has sold more than 2,000 additional copies of “The King’s Teachings” since Lior’s arrest.
Shapira was arrested briefly for questioning about the book last year. No one has been charged.
There is so much in the Torah that, mishum aivah, should not be publicized. But to arrest a Rav? Also, isn’t civil disobedience a part of any democracy?
At the same time, though, I’m not sure why Rav Lior and Rav Yosef shlit”a didn’t go in on their own when the police demanded it. Dina d’malchusa dina.
Not easy times in Klal Yisroel as we approach the 3 weeks.
While I think Lior should be required to submit to a police interrogation just like any other citizen of EY, I’m not sure I would characterize Kiryat Arba as a “radical settlement”. They may lean towards the right but so do other settlers who are reluctant to accept the notion that there will be some areas of the West Bank that will have to be returned to the Palestinians in a Final Settlement. That is a reality that they will eventuall come around too as did those from Gush Katif.
“radical Kiryat Arba settlement” give me a break, …the media would like everyone to envision some kind a wild wild west settlement where everyone is violent and anti Government..The truth is that 2 of the biggest hesder programs are located in kiryat arba ..even the mayor of kiryat arba belongs to the likud party…
Troublemakers!!
Rav Lior was asked to come in for questioning. He ignored the summons. So the police picked him up and brought him to the police headquarters, questioned him and released him. One can argue that questioning anyone is not the same as arresting. And besides, last time I checked, dina d’malkuta dina applied to “prominent” rabbis just as much as to a pashut yid.
Now I can understand a haredi rov ignoring a summons–since he does not acknowledge the state, he could intellectually ignore an action of the state (e.g. a summons); if so, please don’t ask for police protection against any crime.
But Rav Lior is a dati-l’eumi rov. He acknowledges the legitimacy of the Jewish Israeli government and he is employed by that government. If so, how can he ignore a legitimate action of that govenment? Does he only accept that government when they send him a paycheck?
What happened to the halakhah of “dina d’malkutkha dina?” Does it not apply equally to talmidei hakhmim and stam yehudim? Or does it apply only to the shlob on the street?
Finally, who gave the heter to his followers, “mostly teenagers,” to go on a rampage? Is this the derekh hatorah?