Strock said Sharon was “one of the great builders of Israel – and one of its greatest destroyers. He knew how to defeat terror, and also transformed southern Israel into a terror-stricken region…. His great determination and his ability to make a decision and execute it enabled him to attain impressive achievements, as well as disastrous developments.”
David Wilder, of the Hebron Jewish community, wrote in JewishPress.come one week before Sharon’s death: “Ariel Sharon is dying. It’s not considered nice to say bad things about dead people, especially immediately after their passing. So I’m writing this while he’s still alive. Barely. When I heard the news I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Laugh, that finally, he’s leaving us. Or cry, because his ‘this world’ suffering is coming to an end. That’s how much I like Ariel Sharon. He had many positions, and many titles. I will remember him as a monster.”
Daniella Weiss, one of the leaders of Gush Emunim, told Arutz Sheva: “Sharon caused the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria – his old age shamed his youth.” And she added warily: “The media uproar around his gradual death is a prelude encouraging the continued expulsion of Jews.”
But while Sharon’s political enemies over the Gush Katif deportations were careful to conceal and hint of joy at his demise, his victims had no such qualms. Students in the Torat Hachayim advanced yeshiva, which was evacuated by Sharon’s forces from the village of Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif, to be rebuilt in Yad Binyamin, the following congratulations leaflet was circulated:
A Hearty Mazal Tov to –
Ariel Sharon
on the occasion of
His Passing
The leaflet then offers the following passage from the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, item 345:5 –
Converts to another religion, and those who turn in Jews to the government, no one mourns them except their direct family members, and all their other relatives dress in white and eat and drink and are merry.
from the family of
Torat Hachayim
In Israel, where freedom of speech is more a nice idea than a hard and fast right, Minsiter of Internal Security Itzhak Aharonovich announced that he ordered police to start an investigation, because “it is inconceivable that such expressions of glee be permitted to be published and cause a divide and a polarization in the nation.”
Of course, more minor incidents such as the brutal, violent deportation of thousands of Jews were in no way a threat to our national unity.
And the community of Neturei Karta in Jerusalem celebrated Sharon’s death Saturday night, with Shabbat clothes and bottles of wine, according to Yisroel Meir Hirsch, who spoke to Walla. “In Jewish halacha there’s a rule that when a hater of God leaves the world, it’s a mitzvah to rejoice and celebrate.”
A good friend of mine, who, like myself, has been following Sharon’s career since the 1950s, but unlike myself was never infatuated with the man, told me Sharon’s death to him means one thing: four days of no radio or television. Because wherever you turn in all of Israel’s media, from today until at least Wednesday, you’ll run into the larger than life persona of Ariel Sharon. And since my friend neither loved nor hated the guy, and since the guy has not been hurting anyone for eight years—he just wants it to be over.