Haredi Rabbi Retracts Statement Encouraging Yeshiva Students to Kill Israeli Politicians
A haredi Orthodox rabbi who encouraged assassination of Israeli politicians in a speech to yeshiva students has retracted his remarks.
In a recorded speech, Rabbi Nissan Kaplan of Jerusalem’s prominent Mir Yeshiva equated Israel’s current political leadership to Amalek, the biblical enemy Jewish law traditionally commands Jews to eradicate.
The comparison follows passage of a law in March that includes haredi men in Israel’s military draft, from which they were previously exempt. Haredi leaders have vehemently opposed the law and organized a protest against it that drew hundreds of thousands of people in March.
“We have today Haman and Amalek, all this government, and really the way is to take knives and to kill them,” Kaplan said, attributing the statement to leading haredi Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman. “So why are we not doing it? Because, he said, I don’t know yet who is the general who could run the war. But if I would know who’s the general, we’d go out with knives. This is what Rav Shteinman said.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, Kaplan retracted the remarks and said that he and Shteinman hadn’t met for six months.
“I am completely against such words,” Kaplan told the Post. “They’re disgusting. I regret what I said and I am deeply sorry for using such examples. I am also sorry for hurting people’s feelings and I hope they can forgive me.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
