By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz – 17 Nov 2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128767.html
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.
