Rabbi Apologizes to Rabin for Threatening Statements

The Brooklyn-based rabbi who in June declared it permissible under Jewish law to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for his pursuit of the peace process has issued an indirect apology to Rabin and a call for Jewish unity.

“We must learn the lessons of our own history, including that when Jews turn on Jews, our Temple falls,” Rabbi Abraham Hecht, president of the stringently Orthodox Rabbinical Alliance of America, wrote in a recent letter to Rabin.

“We must speak and act toward each other as we would toward God” and “not, then, be divided in anger,” he continued. “For my part, I wish to repudiate any words and actions of anger and which have caused hurt.”

“I welcome this development,” said Ambassador Colette Avital, Israeli consul general in New York. “No one is looking for a fight with the rabbis. I believe there is a need for a different level of discussion between religious and secular leadership.”

Meanwhile, “if Rabbi Hecht has expressed his regret and retracts everything, we have no problem with this,” she said.

In June, Hecht said that by handing over Israeli land and property to Palestinians, Israeli government leaders “and all who assist them” fall into the category of “moser,” or people who betray Jews to Gentiles.

Hecht said Maimonides said these people not only deserve the death penalty but should be killed before they can perform the deed.

Hecht could not be reached to explain what prompted the letter to Rabin at this time.

But Avital said she believed that it was motivated by a public backlash.

“I know in some cases the violent behavior of rabbis has elicited a boomerang in the Jewish community,” she said.

“People felt very uncomfortable with this kind of extremist behavior.”

Several Orthodox groups in July issued a statement – in apparent response to Hecht’s June declarations – saying that “there can be no excuse or justification for the extremist verbal attacks directed against the elected leadership of Israel.”