The National Religious Party is in turmoil over rabbinical calls to soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate Jews from Hebron.
A trio of rabbis earlier this week issued a halachic pronouncement saying that orders to evacuate Jews from that West Bank town are “a sin equivalent to the eating of pork.”
The three rabbis — former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira, Moshe Zvi Neriya and Shaul Yisraeli — are seen as the NRP’s spiritual guides, although the party does not have a supreme rabbinical council as do the fervently religious Agudath Yisrael and Shas parties.
There have been increased calls for the removal of the approximately 400 settlers living among 70,000 Palestinians in Hebron since the mosque massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in remarks to reporters, branded the rabbis’ call to disobey army orders as marking “the beginning of the destruction of the (Israel Defense Force) and of the security of the state.”
But NRP Knesset member Yitzhak Levy endorsed the halachic pronouncement as the official line of the party.
“We are behind the rabbis, without any hesitation,” said Levy, who is one of six NRP officials currently serving in the Knesset.
Levy’s endorsement immediately provoked other NRP Knesset members — including the parliamentary faction’s chairman, Yigal Bibi, and former Cabinet ministers Zevulun Hammer and Avner-Hai Shaki — to protest and demand a meeting with the rabbis to clarify the issue.
Bibi previously made clear his stance on the matter of disregarding clear army directives when he publicly stated, “I could not ask my son, a brigade commander, to disobey orders.”
Rabbi Yosef Burg, the NRP’s elder statesman and a longtime former interior minister, strongly condemned the rabbis’ halachic ruling.
“This is a political matter,” he said, adding, “I reject the rabbis who made such a pronouncement. It is religiously unacceptable.”
Secular right-wing parties, including Likud and Tsomet, have sharply rejected the rabbinical ruling, as have the Labor Party and its coalition partner Meretz.
The fervently religious Shas party and the United Torah Judaism bloc have so far remained silent on the issue.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
