Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Sunday that he has nominated Maj.- Gen. Hertzi Halevi, currently the IDF deputy chief of staff, as the recommended candidate for the IDF’s 23rd chief of staff.
Gantz’s recommendation, which came after a months-long assessment process, still has to be approved by the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee and be confirmed in a cabinet vote.
Halevi, who was selected over the runner-up Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, will be replacing current IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, whose term ends in January 2023.
Halevi, 54, stems from a family strongly identified with Religious Zionism. His grandmother was the daughter of HaRav Dov Ber Kook and the niece of HaGaon HaRav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, z’tl.
Halevi was born and raised in Jerusalem. He attended the religious Himmelfarb high school and was active in religious youth groups. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and business administration from Hebrew University and a master’s degree in national resource management from the National Defense University in Washington D.C.
Halevi is married with four children and lives in Kfar Oranim, a secular settlement in Binyamin, near Modiin Illit.
Gantz’s selection of an IDF chief of staff during an election period under a caretaker government was a controversial one and slammed by the right. But after submitting a classified document explaining his reasoning to Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, she approved the process.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Rav Elchonon Wasserman (and other gedolim) wrote very explicitly and clearly that both Zionism and “National Religious” are each idolatry.
As a bonus, he also appears to be named after the heretical founder SR”Y of political Zionism.
Hallalu ovdei A”Z vaHallalu ovdei A”Z.
Rav Wasserman הי”ד perished in the Holocaust about eighty years ago. Rav Meir Simcha ha-Kohen of Dvinsk זצ”ל was a much greater גדול בתורה and he wrote in a קונטרס (the title of which escapes me) that after the San Remo Conference in 1920 the ג’ שבועות are בטל ומבוטל.
Out of his abundant mercy, Hashem has blessed us with our revived commonwealth in ארץ הקודש. I for one will not repudiate His blessing by condemning good Jews who defend millions of our brethren because Israel is not yet a Torah state.
מלכות יהודה will be established soon. G-d has moved the proverbial pieces with wisdom and patience and has seen to it that an economically and militarily sound state is at the ready when משיח צדקנו finally reveals himself. We need to be patient and have שכל הישר.
Another tinok shenishba… (sarcasm intended)
Dear Ari Knobler,
Like many, you conflate different halachic ideas, the various Shavuos, and you make a mishmash of Torah ideas, thereby confusing yourself and others. Even if the Ohr Sameiach wrote that (it’s quoted in Heteukufah Hagedolah, a quote unreliable source, and it’s contradicted by a letter he himself wrote, quoted in Marah D’arah Yisroel) he was only speaking about permitting mass emigration to Eretz Yisroel with permission from the ruling power. He clearly would not have permitted war against the British or the Arabs, and not the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. Also, the San Remo resolution was retracted by means of the White Paper in 1939 so the supposed heter that came about through San Remo doesn’t exist anymore anyhow.