The Minister of Education will submit for the government’s approval the appointments of the new members of the Hamad Council, which include, among others, Rabbi Esti Rosenberg, Rabbi Uri Sharki and Racheli Frankel. The Chairman of Noam, Knesset member Avi Maoz, commented on this in an interview with Ha’dhu Kipa and said: “Har Etzion You will not take over here.” The next day, he sent a letter of apology to the leaders of the Mount Etzion yeshiva. This evening (Sunday), the head of the Har Etzion Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Lichtenstein sent a letter in which he invited Chairman Noam to a dialogue at his yeshiva.
At the beginning of his words, Rabbi Lichtenstein wrote that he applied to the words of Maoz. “Thank you very much for your letter in which you apologized for your attack against the Mount Etzion Yeshiva and against members who were candidates for the Hamad council who were called ‘junior and fringe rabbis.’ To the extent that there is any harm against the yeshiva, we are completely forgiven and accept your apology with love,” said the head of the Har Etzion yeshiva.
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The rabbi qualified his words and said that Maoz should ask for forgiveness from every rabbi of the Mount Etzion synagogue. “However, I will emphasize the obvious, and that is that I and my fellow yeshiva leaders can forgive the injury to the institution. However, the personal injury to the specific people who were called junior rabbis requires a personal apology from them since only they are authorized to forgive the insult hurled at them. I am sure you will want to contact them Directly – if this has not already been done – and come with them in the matter,” he wrote in the letter.
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Rabbi Lichtenstein Lamaoz: We would be happy to hear your approach to the questions on the agenda
The head of the Har Etzion yeshiva invited Chairman Noam to his yeshiva and said that “I suggest that we use the opportunity to initiate a real dialogue in which essential questions can be discussed between us, and I invite you, along with other figures from the educational and rabbinical world, to come and talk to us in an honest, open manner and deepens these questions. We would be happy to hear your approach to the public and educational questions that are on the agenda, as well as to present to you our educational approach and outlook so that you can hear it firsthand (since I do not know if you or your friends have had the opportunity to have in-depth conversations with educational figures related to our yeshiva or hear conversations/classes in our seminary), Then you can make it difficult for her and criticize her, present to us your mistakes and your positions on these questions and hear our responses.”
Mount Etzion Yeshiva. Photo: Gershon Elinson/Flash90
He also added that he agrees that the Hamad Council needs to be balanced, but he claimed that in other bodies, Maoz is not in a hurry to cry out about the inequality in representation. the proposed figures and therefore I cannot judge this statement on a factual level. However, on a principled level, I certainly agree that it is appropriate to appoint a balanced body that reflects different and diverse educational approaches and not to give one approach all the keys. And here I ask whether you and/or your sender agree that this principle It is two-way, that is, even in other public bodies (for example, the Bnei Akiva Plenum, the Chief Rabbinate Council, etc.) there should be a balance in which all approaches are represented and are there other bodies besides the proposed Hamad Council in which you think there should be a balanced and adequate representation of all opinions And the approaches?”
Avi Maoz in the Knesset plenum. Photo: Dani Shem Tov, spokeswoman for the Knesset
Ma’oz: Asking for forgiveness for the offensive things that were said
As I recall, in a letter that Maoz sent to the leaders of the Mount Etzion yeshiva, he asked to apologize for his words. “In the course of an interview with the Kipa media website, in response to a question about the appointment that was made by stealth to the Hamad Council, the following was quoted: ‘Appointing a Hamad Council during an election is exactly what is not done in a democracy, and therefore it is illegal, any appointment made during an election will be canceled after the election. This is a list in which the Har Etzion yeshiva has 4 members, this is an attempted takeover by Matan Kahana, those junior and marginal rabbis will be on the Hamad Council, Har Etzion will not take over here.
In his letter he explained that “these things, which have personal disqualification of rabbis and Yeshiva Shlomo, are invalid and inappropriate.” Maoz qualified his words and explained that the criticism did exist, but asked for forgiveness, “It is true that my criticism of the appointment of Mahtaf to the Ham’d Council, on the eve of the elections, of the bias of the Ham’d leadership in a specific direction towards which the Deputy Minister of Religions Matan Kahana is striving and the undue weight given To a very specific group, in my opinion, but what I said should not have been said and I apologize and ask for forgiveness for the hurtful things that were said towards you, during the course of the interview, and ask that you accept my apology.