News13 on Monday evening aired a story in which they quoted statements made over recent years by leading rabbonim from Yeshivat Bnei David, the first and a leading pre-IDF mechina located in Yishuv Eli.

The number two man in the Blue and White party, MK Yair Lapid, tweeted “This is not Judaism. These are not values. People who speak this way are not worthy of being called rabbis or educating teenagers. Secularists have established the State of Israel. Any comparison to the Holocaust is a racist abomination and Arabs do not want to be slaves. The state must immediately stop funding the preparatory program until the racist rabbis are removed from there.”

Mertz party chairman, MK Tamar Zandberg turned to the director-general of the Education Ministry earlier, calling for a halt of the funding to Bnei David.

“The mechina in Eli should have been shut down some time ago,” Zandberg stated. She added, ” And he who gave chauvinism, homophobia and the other hate that goes out of the program to continue to go wild and not be surprised at the shocking statements that emerged today. I turned to the Education Ministry with a clear and unequivocal demand – to stop funding the mechina in Eli.”

זו לא יהדות. אלו לא ערכים. אנשים שמדברים כך אינם ראויים להיקרא רבנים או לחנך בני נוער. חילונים הקימו את מדינת ישראל, כל השוואה לשואה היא תועבה גזענית וערבים לא רוצים להיות עבדים. המדינה צריכה לעצור לאלתר את מימון המכינה עד שיורחקו משם הרבנים הגזענים. https://t.co/0df3pQ0VGG

— יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) April 29, 2019

Among the rabbonim quoted in the report are Rav Eliezer Kashtiel and Rav Giora Redler.

Quotes aired in the report include:
“Let’s start with the question of whether Hitler is right or not, he is the most correct person there is, he is certainly right in every word he says,” Rabbi Redler was quoted as saying. “In his ideology he is right. There is a male world that fights, which is concerned with honor and brotherhood of fighters, and there is the soft, moral feminine world of giving the other cheek, and we think that the Jews are the ones who carry this heritage, and therefore, they are the real enemy. He’s 100% right, except that he’s on the wrong side.”

Rabbi Kashtiel was quoted as saying, “It is best to be a slave of a Jew, and they are happy to be slaves. The Arabs want to be under occupation because they have a genetic problem, they do not know how to run a state, they do not know how to do anything, look at what they look like,” he says. “We believe in racism, there are races in the world, and there are genetic traits of nations, and that requires us to think about how to help them,” he said.

Other quotes and examples were aired in the report, all statements, single statements extracted out of context from lectures and shiurim towards building their case to halt state funding and to shut down Yeshiva Bnei David.

Bnei David responds:
In anticipation of the approaching state days (Holocaust Memorial, Memorial Day & Independence Day), we face additional challenges, as we wish to inform you of this announcement. It became known that during the evening news an additional article would be published, aimed at slandering the institutions of the Bnei David in Eli. In Eli, and as many times in the past, the message conveyed in the media will be as far away as heaven from earth and the truth.

“In the framework of the article, sections that were prepared in advance from the shiur of Rabbi Giora Redler, who teaches in institutions, will be brought in. First, it should be noted that the shiur was transferred about 15 years ago (indeed, well researched).

And to the essence of the matter, the quotations are correct but as usual they were taken out of context, and whoever hears the lesson in full will immediately understand the error.

In his shiur, Rabbi Giora explains the “logic” of the enemy of the Jews – Adolf Hitler, while explaining to the students the essence of evil in the world and how, on the other hand, the perpetrators of the atrocities are justified.

“Rabbi Giora explains that the very fact that reducing the Holocaust only to the murders or ceremonies at Yad Vashem is contempt for the Holocaust and diminishing it in the face of the enormous challenge of dealing with the very evil of the world. The Holocaust is greater than all the events that occurred there, however evil, and in a lesson they try to understand and analyze the historical and divine reasons and motives for the Holocaust.”

According to the announcement of Bnei David: “The purpose of this announcement is to preempt the blow, and to have a correct effect on the mistaken initial impression that will be created for those who will learn it for the first time. It should be noted that the statement does not relate to the words of Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)