A Jerusalem beis din heard a case filed by bereaved mothers against Shas’ Aryeh Deri, for his role in the government passing the Oslo Agreement in 1993. In his response to the beis din, Deri directed the attention of the dayanim to Shas’ Moetzas Chachmei HaTorah, explaining they alone are responsible for such decision.
Because Deri failed to appear, the court gave him an additional two weeks to set another date. In addition, the beis din issued an interim order that Deri should not be appointed to a cabinet position until such time the matter may be properly investigated, with the beis din explaining they need to hear the details from the two bereaved mothers who summoned him to the beis din as well as having Deri tell his side of the story.
Deri did not appear before the beis din, but had his secretary respond in writing, challenging the court’s right to hear a case against him in this matter since he was appointed by the Shas Torah Council.
It appears the women actually tried to summon Deri to the Shas council and after they were unsuccessful they turned to the Jerusalem beis din.
The case was filed by Mrs. Geula Hershkowitz of Yishuv Ofra who lost both her husband Aryeh HY”D and son Assaf HY”D in a shooting attack and by Tzafrira Adurian who lost her husband Eli HY”D in a terror attack in Machane Yehuda.
Hearing their case are dayanim Rav Avraham Dov Levin, Rav Gedalyahu Axelrod and Rav Yitzchak Chakak.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
This is a political stunt, not a Din Torah. If they were serious they would either go to a Beis Din associated with Shas, or the government Beis Din, not an ad hoc Beis Din. Since the people bringing the matter are clearly zionists, they should use their medinah’s courts.
Whether Oslo was good or bad is unclear. It reduced the exposure of Israeli troops to attacks since it enabled Israel to withdraw from much hostile territory without the loss of face that accompanied other Israeli withdrawals where the Israelis just retreated without an agreement (such as from Gaza or Lebanon).
What’s their case? At best it’s a grama b’alma. Why don’t they sue other MK’s of that time? Something else is going on here…
Glad that he is being taken to task. Enough of the attitude of security, peace accords,etc. have no RED LINES in Shas and UTJ. Explain how you voted for OSLO and then accept the consequences.
Every Yid has the right to “zavlah”. The shulchan aruch grants the right to an individual to pick the bais din.
Being summoned by a bais sin has little halachik implications unless you are dealing with a small community with only 1 established bais din.
This is political and an unfortunate abuse of power by a bais din.
This woman seems to be either lacking in basic judgement or simply tying to get these rabbonim involved in her own cynical and clearly political games. What is sad though is that these rabbonim would allow themselves to be used in this way. EY is a parlimentary system of government wherein MKs are elected based on the views of their political parties and the coalitions they join. The majority of the government voted in favor of Oslo and most Isreaelis at the time supported the decision. If she doesn’t like the outcome of the decision, she should run for public office or vote for those who would seek to negotiate changes to Oslo. Deri should ignore this kangaroo court organized as a sham din torah and the rabbonim who participated have only embarrased themselves and reduced the respect the average Israeli would have of the beis dins in general for resolving legitimate disputes.
#5 Nonsense… Check out your history of the Oslo Accords and its debates in the Knesset. The majority voted in favor for the ‘benefits’ they received not because of support of the plan. Most people would respect a beis din for resolving legitimate disputes.
All of you! Right or wrong, careful how you write! Or were you not paying attention during krias hatorah? They are both almonos, and on top of that, this is ostensibly about the cuase of their almanus.
At the time, Shas was seen as the enabler of this wretched plan, as they were the last to be brought on board. Deri was the face of the party when some suspected that Shas sold its soul for small change. The one thousand plus korbonos cemented in this suspicion. There are many who don’t forget that the blood of those korbanot are on the hands of those that sat in that cursed governent.
I’m extremely surprised to see such comments from readers of YWN. If Deri who is supposed to represent the Da’as Torah from the gidolai hador is able to laugh at a hazmana sent to him from a very chosheva Beis Din (which Beis Din Yerushaleim happens to be)asking him to show up at a din torah to defend his position then what lesson are we to learn from that?! Can we also totally ignore Beis Din? When we have a dispute are we allowed to present it to archo’os? What happened to the “da’as torah” that Deri claims guides his every move? Is beis din not da’as torah? Or can ANYBODY claim that he is above da’as torah and he does not have to listen to da’as torah. If he is correct that everything he did was al pei da’as torah, let him come to beis din and say that ta’ana and not hide from them.
If a matter is clearly outside the jurisdiction of a beis din, than there is no chiyuv for a public official in EY to respond and submit to its non-existant authority. If every public official were subject to being hauled before a din torah by every moishe or yankel or disagreed with a policy decisino that he or she implemented, they would have have no time to govern and this harrassment would take their time. EY is a civil government and like any other democratic society, public officials have a “sovereign immunity” for lawful decisions they make while in office. They are public officials, not the gabbai of a shul that stole money from the pushka.