Minister of Science (Bayit HaYehudi) Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz did not attempt to hide his anger over the query presented to the Knesset speaker against ongoing Chabad activities in Haifa.

The questions attempted to understand what activities are permitted, and in what range of the Chabad house and does this include permitting efforts to bring people back to yiddishkeit? The questions were based on the fact that serving in a Chabad house qualifies as sheirut leumi (national service) in place of IDF service.

The minister angrily explained that at present, there is only one such Chabad house, the one in the N’vei Sha’anan neighborhood of Haifa. He pointed out that that Chabad house is run by a brother of Rebbitzin Rivki Holtzberg HY”D, who was murdered in the Mumbai attack.

There are a total of four youths serving in that facility under the sheirut leumi program, assisting new immigrants and youths-at-risk in the area, with the minister explaining they are working with difficult areas of society, providing them with daily attention, working to extricate them from their troubled lives.

He explained the activities of sheirut leumi programs in general are supervised, including this Beis Chabad, acknowledging that brining people back to Torah observance is not officially part of the program.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)