Rabbi Chaim Druckman, one of the most senior Hesder yeshivot heads in the country, says he and his colleagues do not accept Barak’s decision regarding Yeshivat Har Bracha – and is working to change it.
Speaking with Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew newsmagazine on Monday, Rabbi Druckman said that the decision to remove Har Brachah from the Hesder arrangement with the army is unacceptable. This, despite Rabbi Druckman’s outspoken stance against refusal of orders having to do with destroying Jewish outposts.
Rabbi Druckman said that the Defense Minister's controversial and disputed decision could have been avoided. “Rabbi Melamed wrote me a letter in which he expresses his opposition to political demonstrations in the army,” Rabbi Druckman said, “and he asked me to submit the spirit of the letter to Deputy Defense Minister Vilnai. In the letter, he clearly identifies with the main point in dispute, namely that there should not be public protests in the army.”
Rabbi Druckman did not elaborate, but other reports stated that when he attempted to give the message to Vilnai, Vilnai said, “It’s too late, it’s already out of my hands.”
A former Knesset Member and teacher of thousands of students of the religious-Zionist sector, Rabbi Druckman said, “We hope very much to reverse the decision even before the Hesder yeshiva heads meet next Sunday. I cannot divulge all our plans for the coming days, but our goal is to have the situation return to the way it was before.”
Asked if he fears that a united front by the Hesder yeshivot would cause Barak to turn against all of them as one, Rabbi Druckman said no: “Barak himself has spoken in praise of the yeshivot. I don’t think he would want to harm something that is so beneficial to the State of Israel.”
Herskovitz to Netanyahu: Take a Stance!
Jewish Home party chairman Rabbi Daniel Hershkovitz, the Minister of Science, has asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene and solve the Har Brachah-Barak crisis. Herskovitz emphasized that there must be no refusal of orders, nor protests in the army, but that neither must a yeshiva be ejected from the Hesder arrangement.
Netanyahu has so far not commented on the issue, despite requests to do so from various quarters.