Baruch Marzel
Baruch MarzelYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Right-wing activist Baruch Marzel expressed concern over Elazar Stern's return to the Knesset following the resignation of former education minister and Yesh Atid MK Shai Pirson. 

Stern, who was a member of Tzipi Livni's Hatnua faction in the 19th Knesset, is a controversial figure among religious Zionists.

A former IDF Chief Education Officer, Stern supported the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza, and is also remembered for a 2007 decision barring soldiers in Hesder yeshivot from serving in Golani and Paratrooper units, which was seen as an attempt to disband the yeshivot. 

As MK, he was involved in an emotional controversy surrounding then-Rabbi of Kiryat Arba-Hevron, Rabbi Dov Lior. Speaking in the Knesset plenum, Stern accused the rabbi of making derogatory comments about Ethiopian Jews and questioning their Jewishness. 

Former MK Orit Stuck of the Jewish Home said at the time that what MK Stern did "was, in a way, to spit in the face of Rabbi Dov Lior."

"We remember Elazar Stern from his days as an IDF general," Marzel told Arutz Sheva on Thursday. "He hurt the Hesder yeshivot, intervened as an MK in religious matters he doesn't understand, such as conversion."

"He inserted himself into the matters of rabbis and severely damaged Israel," Marzel charged. 

According to Marzel, Stern belongs with the secularist Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid. "Stern sat with his kippah alongside Lapid, the head of a party that persecutes religion. At least he today he's in the right place - a member of Yair Lapid and the mask has been removed."

"Stern is a talented man with ability and in that lies the danger," Marzel asserted. "This man cannot be regarded as a religious person."