Jerusalem – Head of Yitzhar’s Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, who was arrested and questioned last week on suspicion of incitement to violence against non-Jews, commented on the incident for the first time in the press on Sunday, and urged his fellow rabbis to join him and express the Halacha’s stance on the “ethics of war”.
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The alleged incitement is found in Yitzhar’s book, “Torat Hamelech”, in which he presented a halachic perspective on the killing of gentiles. On Sunday, the rabbi said, “Despite the establishment’s picking on anyone who publishes a Torah opinion in the matter, we must not be afraid.”
In an open letter published in the rightist-religious newspaper B’Sheva, Shapira wrote, “I am assuming that everyone admits that the war ethics currently guiding the establishment do not match what the Torah teaches.” He gave as an example the prosecution of soldiers and officers “for battling Israel’s enemies”.
Shapira addressed rabbis whose students serve in the Israel Defense Forces and are “risking their lives” ‘in the war against the enemy, and urged them to teach and publish their viewpoints in order to give these soldiers “the power of the Torah”. According to the rabbi, “We cannot remain silent when people who risk their lives in the war on Israel’s enemies are put on trial for it.”
a fool born every day
Reply to #1 . And your comment prooves that point!
This Rav will hopefully spend the rest of his life in jail and will have plenty of time to rethink his version of the “torah rules of engagement”. Yidden will die because of his incitement to violence against innocents so locking him up and keeping him silent will be in the interests of klal yisroel.
says:,
Your Leftist rants are nothing but sound and fury. Rashi says don’t have mercy on your enemies because they will not have mercy on you. Mercy to the cruel leads to cruelty to the merciful. 23 of our dear brethren had to die in Jenin for the sake of looks to the world.
They hate us anyways and will do what they can to kill us. We need to fight to kill and to win. Any civilians that don’t learn to stay away from fighters have their own blood on their hands. Even if enemy civilians die, most of them are not innocent and those that are not more innocent than our valorous soldiers.
Hope the allegations are not true, and I give him the benefit of the doubt – dan lekaf zechus.
But, if it is true, then he is just like the palestinian terrorists, a radical imam in jewish garb.
Reply to #4
“Even if enemy civilians die, most of them are not innocent and those that are not more innocent than our valorous soldiers”
Your ignorance and hate do not gain any legitimacy by cloaking your comment by quoting Rashi. Most of the Palestinian refugees living in Gaza or the West Bank or in the slumbs of Beirut have no political agenda and simply want to live thier lives and feed their families under very difficult decisions. Sure they blame Israel for the predicament but most have no knowledge of the real causes of their miserable lives. In any event they are human beings with the SAME value as an Israeli civilian or and IDF soldier or any other of hashem’s creations.
We have become just like the other nations in that we, too, rationalize hatred, bigotry, and violence.
We cannot complain about the Muslim world’s tolerance of terrorists as long as we excuse stuff like this.
#4 (Factsoflife) tells us:
” We need to fight to kill and to win.”
I totally, utterly and reservedly agree with that sentiment.
The best way to do that is to join the Israel Defense Force and help it to defend EY against its (and our) enemies – l e g a l l y.
Insurrection is NOT the way.
this no rabbi . calling him rabbi is actually an insult to the real rabbis and clergymen. they should burn his seforim and writings
Says: # 7,
says “Your ignorance and hate do not gain any legitimacy by cloaking your comment by quoting Rashi.”
In other words, let’s continue to ignore the divine wisdom of the Torah according to you.
” Most of the Palestinian refugees living in Gaza or the West Bank or in the slumbs of Beirut have no political agenda and simply want to live thier lives and feed their families under very difficult decisions. Sure they blame Israel for the predicament but most have no knowledge of the real causes of their miserable lives.”
I see that you have been swallowing all the anti Israel propaganda wholesale. I guess you missed the videos where masses of Palestinian women civilians came out and separated the Israel forces from their homicide bomber brothers in order to let them go free and maim and murder for another day. It is insane and suicidal thinking like this that causes so many unnecessary deaths and injuries among our pure and innocent soldiers.
” In any event they are human beings with the SAME value as an Israeli civilian or and IDF soldier or any other of hashem’s creations.”
The IDF soldiers are more innocent than those terrorist supporters who have been shown to support the terrorist tactics in polls that they have taken. chayey ben Yisroel yoser choshuv meod meod maychayei hatovim sebiakum.
Reply to #12
No need for any further response. Your divine ignorance of daas torah is breathaking in its scope and in your deliberate effort to make youself sound like a frum yid with your efforts to mimic ivrit and totally irrelevant factual assertions about what the average Palestinian actually knows and feels.
Reply to #11 ,
Hamas got 44% of the vote in the 2006 election. That is hardly overwhelming. They control Gaza because of the coup they pulled off in 1997.
And some Arabs in Chevron saved Jews in 1929. One of the survivors, saved by her family’s landlord, later married Rabbi Dr. Yosef Burg z’tz’l, the founder of the National Religious Party.
Too many crzy Rabbis.