On Thursday last week, the office of the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi David Lau, approached the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Command with a request to coordinate the entry of the rabbi into the Yeshivat Chumash, in order to teach a lesson to students. The general’s response to the chief rabbi was negative, claiming that it was a closed military area that Israelis were not allowed to enter.
The IDF spokesman said that “the security forces’ policy regarding the evacuation of Chumash has not changed.”
The Yeshivat Chumash said tonight that since the assassination of Yehuda Dimentman the 14th two and a half months ago, “the Israeli government has been waiting for an opportunity to destroy the Yeshivat Chumash. The huge waves of support that the yeshiva receives prevent the destruction. “Preventing the arrival of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, to the yeshiva is another attempt to harm the yeshiva in order to prepare the ground for the destruction of the yeshiva, to award a prize for terrorism and to complete the murderous activities of Judah.”
Smutrich: “This is a serious violation of the honor of the Chief Rabbi and the honor of the Chief Rabbinate”
Member of Knesset Bezalel Smutrich addressed Defense Minister Bnei Gantz today following the Commander-in-Chief’s decision, and wrote to him: “As you probably know, the same law prohibiting is also the law that allows the Commander-in-Chief to enter. “The state to enter the Yeshivat Chumash if he wanted to ?! This is a serious violation of the honor of the Chief Rabbi and the honor of the Chief Rabbinate and the crossing of another red line in your abuse of the Yeshivat Chumash.”
IDF letter Photo: None
Smutrich wrote that preventing the chief rabbi from entering joins a series of recent aggravations and disruptions to the yeshiva’s activities there. “Thus, for example, the new requirement to present the identity card of the yeshiva students and rabbis at the exit from Shavei Shomron.”
“Much has been written and said about the folly of harming the yeshiva after the severe attack in which the yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman was killed.
In his letter, the chairman of Religious Zionism summed up his appeal to the minister: “I would ask you to order the general to allow the chief rabbi to enter the yeshiva immediately and to stop the repeated attempts to narrow the yeshiva’s steps and interfere with a Jewish presence there for fifteen years in a row.”
(Chumash, Archive)