Senior rabbonim affiliated with the Zionist camp have sent a letter to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, not sharing the opinion of IDF Chief Rabbi Brigadier-General Rafi Peretz regarding kol isha performances. Rabbi Peretz has stated repeatedly stated that there are ways to avoid listening to a female performer and if there is a need to chose between Halacha and military regulations, the latter must come first.
In the letter from Tishrei 5772, Rabbi Tzvi Tau, Amiel Sternberg and Shlomo Aviner Shlita speak of “Taharat HaMachane”, the purity of the camp, explaining that compelling soldiers to remain present at kol isha events is simply contrary to Halacha and they must ask that the military refrain from compelling personnel to transgress this law of modesty.
While the rabbonim cite importance of serving in the IDF, they add the Halacha does not permit kol isha and they are compelled to speak out to preserve Torah modesty values and towards preventing a “breach” in these laws. They also point out that the chief rabbis of Israel, Rav Moshe Shlomo Amar Shlita and Rav Yona Yechiel Metzger Shlita have stated kol isha is not permitted, requesting the IDF simply permit those who wish to avoid compromising their religious beliefs to do so.
Click on the letter to enlarge
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Are these Dati-Leumi Rabbis serious? Don’t they understand that this is a SHMAD campaign, and these totally gratuitous Kol-Isha performances are there for the specific purpose of breaking0down the Torah standards of the soldiers.
This is a Kulturkampf, and it must be fought as such!
#1,no it’s just a total lack of respect. you sound paranoid.
All they have to do is convince them that the IDF would work best if they hilonim who run the place would agree to be “Jews while in public, and content to be Hilonim at home” (the reverse of the classic assimilationist position urging one to be “a man in the street, and a Jew at home.”) They could agree to run the public life of Israel in accordance with halacha, and be content to be tolerated as a marginalized group that kept their secular ideology “in the closet”.
I wish them well. If the Religious Zionists can’t convince the secular zionists to accept Israel as a Jewish state, they are more less agreeing that the whole zionist enterprise is doomed (cue: Neturei Karta gloating). It is possible the hilonim would be content to focus on their personal lives and agree to public life in Israel reflecting Jewish tradition.
Or from another folk story about someone trying a task with a similar likelihood of success: “the dog may die, the king may die, or the dog may learn to speak”
#1, a little more respect for gedolim. dont think your all that