A prominent haredi yeshiva has decided to part ways with one of its most popular rabbis over his open support of the extremist Yerushalmi Faction.
According to Kikar Hashabbat, Rabbi Baruch Shmuel Hacohen Deutsch, a yeshiva dean from the elite Kol Torah Yeshiva in Jerusalem, was told last week by yeshiva administrators that he could not continue teaching at the institution due to his open support for the extremist Yerushalmi Faction.
The report also said that the rabbi plans to open up a new yeshiva that will be destined solely for members of the Yerushalmi Faction.
Ever since Yerushalmi Faction leader Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach died in March, Rabbi Deutsch had come out to be one of the leaders of the faction, bewildering his students at the Kol Hatorah Yeshiva, which opposes the Yerushalmi Faction's activities. After numerous complaints from students, senior staff at the Kol Hatorah Yeshiva decided that they had no alternative other than to part ways.
The Yerushalmi Faction, which is connected with recently-deceased Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, has been locked in a power struggle with the mainstream haredi community ever since the death of Torah Sage Rabbi Sholom Elyashiv in 2012.
The Yerushalmi Faction considered Rabbi Elyashiv's successor, Bnei Brak-based Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman to be an illegitimate leader, and revolted against his authority, splitting the hierarchical haredi world. Since the split, the Lithuanian-haredi world has been locked in a power struggle over which rabbinical leader controls the community.