Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren lashed out today against religious extremists who he said were trying to pillory him as they did one of his most revered predecessors, the late Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Rabbi Goren, who has come under bitter attack from ultra-Orthodox circles for his ruling in the Langer case, addressed 1000 Jerusalem high school students on Chanuka eve and answered questions from some of them on the Langer ruling. Later, the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi kindled the first Chanuka light at ceremonies at the Western Wall attended by 3000 onlookers.
Speaking to the students, Rabbi Goren angrily rejected charges that he was elected to the Chief Rabbinate because he had promised the government he would remove the taint of bastardy from Hanoch and Miriam Langer, permitting them to marry their fiances. He said he would have ruled as he did even if it were contrary to the government’s wishes because it was most important to him that justice be done.
WILL NOT BE DETERRED BY THREATS, ABUSE
Rabbi Goren said he would not be deterred from his course by “threats and abuse” to which he has been subjected. He said the same things were done to the late Rabbi Kook by those who burned him in effigy “and sent him to his grave.” Rabbi Kook was Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Palestine from 1921 until his death in 1935.
Asked by one student why he acted so speedily and secretly in the Langer case, Rabbi Goren replied that he wanted “to prevent the evil doers from interfering.” He denounced the yeshiva principals who have assailed the Langer ruling. “They set themselves up as the guardians of the Torah, but who appointed them?” Rabbi Goren asked.
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