MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) raised the ire of members of the Degel HaTorah party on Wednesday evening when he launched a scathing attack on Rabbi Dov Lando, leader of the haredi Lithuanian community, who declared that "no yeshiva student will go to the army."
"We’ve known this all along. The haredi wheeler-dealers - Lando and others - were just trying to buy time and get more money, money, money. During wartime, at the expense of the soldiers and the fallen. My heart aches for the bereaved families and the wives of the reserve soldiers, who have come to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in recent months to cry out their anguish. Our haredi brothers chose to close their ears and mostly their hearts," Stern wrote in a post on social media.
Degel HaTorah chairman, MK Moshe Gafni, fired back and said, "You are a rude person. You have no appreciation for the value of Torah study or Torah giants. You invent nonsense like any common heretic, and you are not worthy of a response."
MK Yaakov Asher added, "Show some respect when you speak about a remnant of a generation of great minds, the giant of giants, Rabbi Dov Lando, may he live a long life. A small and vile person like you cannot even be the dust beneath his feet."
MK Yitzhak Pindrus responded with harsh words as well, "You’re not the first fool who thinks that dishonoring the Torah will help your personal advancement. If you haven’t learned Torah, at least learn from history, and maybe you’ll remember that one who mocks Torah scholars has no cure for his affliction."