The article hints that someone very close to Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, for whatever reason, decided to spill the beans. Even if there is no criminality, to me it is clear that this is more evidence that religion is corrupted by money and political power. It becomes just another commodity to be traded.

Update:  According to this discussion on Behadrei Hareidim, the person who sent the letter is Rabbi David Yosef.  Rabbi David Yosef is the author of Halakhah Berurah, a comprehensive commentary on the Shulhan Arukh.  This also comes soon after another son who has been somewhat estranged from the family for some time, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Yediot Aḥaronot Jan 20, 2012

While this is only a poll, and who knows when elections will be, it shows the potential disruption that the two of them hold in their hands. But let’s not forget the one shot wonders of Israeli politics from the past-see Dash and the longer-lived Shinui.

Aryeh Deeri was on Ilana Dayan’s show Uvdah the other night, (here) but I’ll believe him when he actually starts a party.

Interview with Moshe Abutbul Galei Tzahal Dec. 30, 2011

Jews, unlike Moslems, have a millennia-long history of living as a despised minority. Minority status has also imbued us with an appreciation of prudence. Satmar Chassidim in Williamsburg, for instance, do not post dress code advisories in the elevators of buildings they share with Puerto Ricans.

I would like to draw Rosenblum’s attention to the following news report (hat tip) about protests against a hair salon in Williamsburg. Am I sure that the protestors are Satmar Hasidim? No, but Rosenblum’s description of ultra-orthodox behavior seems to be in need of fixing. On a related matter, here is a report about ultra-orthodox protests against bike lanes in Brooklyn. I guess that prudence is hard to come by these days.

There have been two main criticisms of the decision to investigate Rabbi Lior. One is that it is disrespectful for a rabbi to be subjected to a police investigation for a legal opinion that he wrote, or in this case, a letter of support for a book. There are really two parts to this claim. The first is that a person of Rabbi Lior’s stature should not be subjected to a police investigation. My opinion about this claim is that a rabbi is not above the law, and just as presidents and prime ministers have been investigated, if needed, so should rabbis. The second is that a person shouldn’t be punished for words that they have written or opinions that they have voiced. This addresses the limits of free speech and incitement and I’ll let others more knowledgable about the subject address this question.

For those interested, the Israeli Supreme Court has a search engine for English translations of some of their decisions. Search for “incitement” or “freedom of speech” and you’ll get some interesting results. In addition see this critique (Hebrew) by Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer of one of the Supreme Court’s decisions and this book (Hebrew). Also, see this article (English) by Prof. Yedidia Stern about the “Dov Lior Bill” that would prohibit the prosecution of rabbis for opinions expressed in a Torah-related publication.

Another criticism is that there is an unequal enforcement of laws against incitement. According to this claim, people who are religious or hold right-wing views are investigated more frequently than those who are left-wing. This may be true, but I would like to see a serious examination of the question before people start making serious claims against law enforcement and the courts. For example, during the past few days MK Yaakov Katz has been spewing diatribes against the police and the prosecutor’s office. A little searching on the Internet found that these very same police and prosectors investigated incitement against MK Katz earlier this year. It might mean much, but it should cause one to be careful about serious allegations of discrimination.

By the way, I happen to own two volumes of Rabbi Lior’s responsa, Shu”t Devar Ḥevron. I have found them to be interesting and clearly written and Rabbi Lior addresses many interesting topics. When reading them I try and ignore his other halakhic opinions that I find revolting.

תניא כוותיה דרבי יוחנן: אין עושין שלש עיירות מנודחות בארץ ישראל, אבל עושין אותם שתים, כגון אחת ביהודה ואחת בגליל. אבל שתים ביהודה ושתים בגליל – אין עושין. וסמוכה לספר – אפילו אחת אין עושין. מאי טעמא – שמא ישמעו גוים ויבואו ויחריבו את ארץ ישראל.

They do not declare three towns to be apostate towns in the Land of Israel, so as not to wipe out [Israelite] settlement in the Land of Israel. But they declare one or two (to be apostate cities]. R. Simeon says, “Even two they may not declare, but they may declare one town in Judah and one town in Galilee [to be apostate towns].” And near the frontier they may not declare even one town to be an apostate town so that gentiles will not come and destroy the Land of Israel. (This is from trans. Neusner, but I made a few slight changes, one based on MSS.)

Here are two possible explanations of the bolded clause: 1. The destruction of a Jewish town will further weaken the Jewish control over the area; 2. The destruction of a Jewish town will serve as an example for Gentiles, i.e. if the Jews are doing it, why can’t we.

A comprehensive article (see comment below) on what happened in Tzefat has been written by Mustafa Abbasi in his article The Battle for Safad in the War of 1948: A Revised Study. While in his conclusion Abbasi does talk about “[the] expulsion of the Arab residents of the city and nearby villages,” the article presents a more complicated picture. Many ran away, although others were expelled. There also seems to have been an execution of military-age Arab male prisoners in the nearby village of Ein Zeitun.

Politicians aren’t historians and they often don’t show too much concern for the historical record, but hopefully they’ll at least be someone around to correct them.

bitterlemons: UNGAR 194 “resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date”. How do you address this demand?

Eliav: The background is the war of 1948 when the refugee problem was created. It was a zero-sum game. What victors did to vanquished in wars all through history was done in this war. The Arabs were victorious in about 20 battles; they erased Jewish villages and towns, deported the civilians and made them into refugees. The best known of those victories were in the Etzion Bloc where four villages were destroyed and their occupants deported, and in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, where the victorious Arabs destroyed all the houses and some of the most sacred synagogues and even took Jewish tombstones from the holiest graveyard of the Jewish people, where my great great grandfather is buried, and made them into paving stones. The Jews were victorious in 400 places. We did the same thing. We destroyed houses, some mosques, and deported people and made them into refugees. That’s the whole terrible story in a nutshell. This war created hundreds of thousands of refugees. I acknowledge their misery, but not the blame. This was war, as it has been fought all over the globe and all over history.

bitterlemons: So you’re citing historical precedent?

Eliav: You can’t turn back the clock of history after such a war, because if you give the right of return you bring havoc to the whole very delicate balance of humanity. The war of 1948 was the outcome of the events of WWII where I was a soldier. Millions of Russian and German refugees were deported. If you go by the right of return rule, then they should all claim the right of return to what is now Poland, to Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad) in eastern Prussia, to the Sudetenland in the Czech Republic. The same goes for India and Pakistan, where millions were deported and have no right of return. I speak as one of those who were in charge of settling hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees in Israel; I built entire regions in Israel to absorb refugees. More than half of Israelis are refugees and their children, including myself; I arrived in Palestine at age three. Both peoples have a large refugee proportion. We resettled them, and so can the Palestinians, with modern technology and a Marshall Plan.

bitterlemons: Many moderate Palestinians ask that Israel accept a small, symbolic number of Palestinian refugees.

Eliav: The greatest symbol is a big Marshall plan for the refugees. Accepting a symbolic few will bring only terrible envy to those not included. This means more friction and more hatred.

bitterlemons: UNGAR 194 also resolves “that compensation should be paid for the property of those [refugees] choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property”. How do you view this demand for compensation?

Eliav: My view derives from what I said before. We don’t accept blame. The problem of the refugees was the outcome of two sides fighting each other. There is no parallel here, say, to WWII, where the Nazis destroyed a helpless Jewish people who were not at war with them, after which Germany agreed to compensate the survivors.

bitterlemons: Successive Israeli governments since David Ben Gurion have agreed to the compensation principle.

Eliav: When Ben Gurion and others were ready for compensation they thought this would solve the whole conflict. Since then we’ve had 50 years of mutual bloodshed. By the way, if each refugee gets a certain sum in compensation it won’t help to solve the problem. We need billions of dollars.

bitterlemons: These views are very different from those of the Israeli left of which you are a prominent member.

Eliav: This is not entirely true. The Geneva Accord has a clause that Israel will not bear the burden of solving the problem, but also an outlet for a minimal number of refugees to be resettled. I oppose this. I prefer the Nusseibeh-Ayalon program which states clearly that no Palestinians will settle in Israel and no Jews will settle in Palestine.

bitterlemons: You are a pioneer of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, going all the way back to 1976 when you began talking with Issam Sartawi, a close aide of Arafat. How do Palestinians react to your views?

Eliav: I told Sartawi the very same thing. He and others understood it, as does Nusseibeh today. I reject Israeli government schemes for compensation. I prefer a big Marshall Plan, with Israeli participation. I prefer to build modern towns with thousands of houses for refugees.

bitterlemons: Isn’t this a form of collective compensation?

Eliav: This is not collective compensation. I don’t want to use the word compensation, but rather for us to act as good neighbors, and on a big scale, together with the West, the wealthy Arab states, etc. This vision of a grand Marshall Plan should be put into the future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It should be signed by the future donors. It should be of a magnitude of $100 billion. This makes personal compensation look marginal. On the other hand suppose, God forbid, the Palestinians have their way and about two million refugees settle, say, in Kiryat Gat, which was pre-1948 Fallujah. I built Kiryat Gat. They’ll have to deport the Jewish refugees who live there and were settled by me. Then we have to destroy the Intel and Indigo hi-tech plants and erase Kiryat Gat and create the new Fallujah. This means the destruction of Israel in no time.

Published 27/9/2004 (c) bitterlemons.org

The photograph is described as being on the “Mt. of Olives Road,” so I wonder if it is even the same building. It is possible that only a wing of the hotel was demolished and that this more historic section is still standing. I am not sure. It may be that people usually see the not so pretty back of it. (picture from here)

If the building pictured in the older picture was destroyed, who cares if the anti-semitic Mufti of Jerusalem built it, it’s a beautiful building that should be preserved.

In any case, the collection is a pleasure to browse.

Update: According to this article to original historic building will be turned into a holocaust museum. For those who profess a love of Jerusalem, a museum about it might have been more appropriate. An addition that was built during Jordanian times was destroyed.

He said he is trying to reclaim the Sephardic heart within Shas, “so the world is watching me.” He began to speak out, he noted, because “Israel is in big trouble and it is time to go back to the tradition” of tolerance and balancing Torah study with a livelihood.

For now, Rabbi Amsellem is focused on creating a process that will wean kollel students from dependency on the government for funding.

He mentioned encouraging conversations he has had with Stef Wertheimer, the billionaire Israeli industrialist and entrepreneur, about creating secular educational opportunities leading to high-tech careers for some top yeshiva students.

“It’s important to have and to support yeshivas,” Rabbi Amsellem said, “but kollel is not for everyone. The Sephardic community was never like this. We need an ideological movement for this, not a political one,” he said, referring to his plans to create the Am Shalem organization.