Lihya Lapid (Photo: Gili Yaari, Flash 90)
Prime Minister’s wife Lehi Lapid revealed today (Friday) that she has filed a lawsuit against Rabbi Tovia Singer, who claimed in interviews before the elections that she is not Jewish. In a post she wrote on Facebook, Lapid revealed her family connection to the former chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, the late Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel.
“I sued the man who spread the lie that I am not Jewish – because I am the great-granddaughter of the late Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel,” wrote Lapid. “Rabbi Amiel was the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. He was the chief rabbi of Antwerp for 16 years, and then he was called to come to the Holy Land – and he came. The rabbi whom Zionism burned, came in 1936 to be the chief rabbi of the young city that arose in Holt.”
Lapid clarified that “I sued him and the person who made sure to spread the lie in the name of my great-grandfather Rabbi Amiel, who was one of the leaders of religious Zionism and founded the ‘New Settlement’ yeshiva, which since his death is called the ‘Rabbi Amiel Yeshiva.’ And it was the model from which the high school yeshivas in Israel grew (among its graduates are Israel’s chief rabbi David Lau, Yaakov Weinroth, Yaakov Naaman and others).”
Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel. (Photo: Religious Kibbutz Archive)
“No one will doubt my Judaism”
“I sued Rabbi Singer because no one would doubt my Jewishness. Because my Jewishness, along with my Zionism, is my identity, and it is a pulsating and active part of my life, starting with the family Kiddush every week with a chala on the table, through the holidays, to being a proud mother whose son enlists in the armor to to protect the country” she claimed. “No one will try to say anything else about me and I will remain silent.”
She also said that “a few days before the elections, my website was hacked and someone started posting strange messages in my name. I knew that’s how the machine works, but I didn’t realize at the time that it was related to a crazy campaign and that within two days, 48 hours before the elections, it would be spread that I was not Jewish. That I had converted to Christianity. It never occurred to me Let them spread fake pictures of me and Yair with a cross. Let a rabbi named Tovia Singer come and start a delusional interview campaign about my support for Christianity and spread horror videos against me.”
“So I sued him. I sued him in the name of my father, my grandfather, Rabbi Amiel. In the name of my husband. In the name of my entire shocked family,” continued Lapid. “Rabbi Tovia Singer realized his mistake. He will publish an apology. It is of course too late, as they planned, and I am sure that his apology will not reach everyone who believed this lie. It will certainly not reach the hundreds of thousands of followers of the nimble Likud tweeters who spread this lie. Dancing on the blood and attach to it a fake photograph with a fake cross.”
“We made a mistake in agreeing to be called ‘secular'”
According to her, “Rabbi Singer apologized to me and I waive him the payment of the compensation. The money is not important to me. My name is important to me. My Judaism is important to me. My Judaism is Zionist and Israeli and full of warmth and love – one where the holidays and Shabbat are part of life, we do kiddush on Fridays, Liori blesses On the challah, and yes, I fast on Yom Kippur.”
“I sued because I am not ready for them to shame the memory of my dear father, peace be upon him, and the memory of his father’s proud Jewish family, the people of the old settlement in Jerusalem and the builders of the land (the respected Man family in Jerusalem), some of whom still wear a kippah. My father, his grandson, grew up in Jerusalem. On his father’s side, I am a generation Eighth in the country. A Bnei Akiva boy with a kippah with which he also went to the army.”
Concluding her remarks, Lapid clarified that “I am Jewish, I am a Zionist, and I think we made a mistake in agreeing to be called ‘secular’. It is a name that is full of disrespect. We are proud Jews and our Judaism is important to us. Together with Zionism, it is the basis of our life here.”
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