The dean of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, was summoned to the Judea and Samaria police station on Monday.
At the station, he was taken to meet ISA coordinators, who threatened the rabbi and claimed, among other things, that students of his yeshiva took part in various demonstrations around Samaria, and demanded that he cooperate with them against the demonstrations.
The ISA personnel threatened that if he did not do as they asked, they would act against his yeshiva: "Keep your students from taking part in protests in Samaria. If not, we will act against your yeshiva. You do not want the Border Police to once again seize your yeshiva's study hall. "
In 2014, a company of Border Police took over the yeshiva in the Samaria town of Yitzhar, while disrespecting the holy books at the site and installing exercise machines in the study hall. The appropriation eventually drew a settlement of hundreds of thousands of shekels for the yeshiva. Rabbi Elitzur is being represented by attorneys Adi Kedar and Nati Rom from the Honenu legal aid organization.
The yeshiva commented: “Israel deserves an ISA that will stop the next massacre. The ISA is currently involved in blood libels. The next massacre is almost upon us, and there is no one who will protect the citizens of Israel. Israel needs to establish security forces that will protect the state and its security.”
Shmuel Medad, director of Honenu, stated: “Woe to us for this disgrace. If we thought that the intelligence catastrophe that we saw on October 7th might make the ISA reconsider its operations, we were fantasizing. The failed misconception continues at the height of its power, and in many ways is getting even stronger. ISA coordinators have become so insolent that they would threaten a yeshiva dean in Israel, and are not even afraid to threaten to close the yeshiva he leads. The country's leaders must show some leadership and stop this horrific injustice. "
Attorneys Kedar and Rom added: “The fact that a yeshiva dean in Israel finds himself in disgrace in an interrogation room, while there is not the least criminal accusation against him, but rather only to listen to the screams and threats of ISA coordinators, should make it hard for anyone to sleep at night.”