This blue-shirted, coatless rabbi said every Shabbat he has about 40 soldiers come for lunch. “I would cry if it weren’t Shabbat,” he says, because the soldiers, the products of Israeli schools, know nothing about their own history.
“They don’t know who is buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, they don’t know who Moshe Rabenu was, Marzel says sadly. “If these Israelis knew their own history, they would be not only better Jews, but better soldiers, better citizens, better everything.”
To underscore his point, Marzel told the story of when the first Israeli president David Ben-Gurion met with the Chazon Ish (Rabbi Avraham Yishai Karelitz) about the ideal type of education system to have in Israel, Chazon Ish said: “You want to build kofrim (nonbelievers) but you’ll end up with amei arasot (ignoramuses).
FREE SPEECH
What about free speech and free expression? We asked about Haneen Zoabi (the Arab member of the Knesset who vilifies Israel), with whom Marzel has tussled in the past, and both of whom were initially barred from running in this election, although that decision was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.
“I’m all for free speech for Zoabi, I’m for allowing Zoabi to speak,” Marzel says immediately. And, he quickly adds, with a twinkle, “Every time she talks, I get more votes. She explains to people why they should vote for me and I don’t have to say a word.”
Then, more seriously, Marzel adds, “I am not afraid of what someone has to say. The only people who are against freedom of speech are the Bolsheviks, the leftists. They believe in freedom of speech only for themselves. They’re the ones…remember [Rabbi Meir] Kahane? They blocked him from speaking on Israeli public radio. He was an elected member of the Knesset!”
THE ARAB QUESTION
On the subject of the Arab-Israeli war, Marzel is very clear. First, it is a religious war, not one about ethnicity or land. “The Palestine Liberation Organization began in 1964. What did they want to liberate? Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beer Sheva, all of Israel.”
“I respect the Arabs, they say what they mean. They say they are not going to give up one inch of this land – kol hakavod! That’s why I am going to fight them.”
So, how would he differentiate between our friends and our enemies? Marzel has a simple definition: “If they support Hamas, if they support Hezbollah, if they support the PLO, if they support those who want to throw out Jews, then they are the enemy and they have to leave.”
“Anywhere else in the world, if someone were to tell me that I can’t live in my home, in Hebron, because I am a Jew, that would be called anti-Semitism! Anti-Semitism does not belong in Israel. People who hate Jews do not belong in Israel.
“It’s us or them. If the enemy is going to stay and continue trying to slaughter us, then we will end up like what is happening in Syria. If we allow the enemy to stay, then Daesh (ISIS) is going to rule this country. They want to kill us. Just look at what they are doing to their brothers in Syria. That is what our future would be here.
“And I am not going to let them do that to my children and grandchildren. I’m going to throw them out of here.” Where will they go? “That’s not the problem, that can be dealt with. The big problem is getting Israel to decide to do this, that it is morally right to throw out the people who want to kill us.”
Marzel had already rejected the idea of differentiating between chiloni (secular) and dati (religious) Jews – “there are good Jews and bad Jews, what they wear is not what makes them one or the other” – but JewishPress.com wanted to know how he would deal with Arabs who don’t want to kill Jews, Arabs who want to live in Israel, see it prosper and be a part of this country.