Leaders of Judea and Samaria and right-wing politicians denounced Friday’s “price-tag” arson-murder attack, but rabbis have not yet publicly joined the chorus of disgust.
The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) and the Binyamin Regional Council stated:
We express our shock of the terrible murder last night in the village of Duma. This is not the path of residents of Judea and Samaria who are struggling with the complicated security situation while trying to remain the fabric of life of our Palestinian neighbors.”
Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) Knesset Member Betzalel Smotritz also denounced the arson-murder and added that regardless of the “hypocrisy of certain extreme left-wing sources and the government mismanagement, it is absolutely forbidden to lose our senses, which is what seems to have happened last night.
“We need nerves of steel and not let ourselves be dragged into such actions that are in themselves evil and also are damaging to ourselves.
There is no doubt that rabbis, especially those of Judea and Samaria, will denounce the terror, but they are taking too much time.
“Yesha rabbis” for years have been too silent in the wake of price tag attacks, which until last night were too easily dismissed as “vandalism” that never came even near to the savage Palestinian Authority terrorist attacks against Jews,
That no longer is true.
It was not true as of last year when three Jews burned to death a Jerusalem Arab teenager in revenge for the kidnap-murders of three Jewish yeshiva youth.
Rabbis have been too silent in cleaning up their own acts of bribery, corruption and sex crimes.
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed (Tzfat) showed true leadership last month when he expelled Rabbi Ezra Scheinberg from the city after women complained to him that he had seduced and raped them.
That is the kind of leadership that has been lacking in Judea and Samaria..
No one can justifiably blame Yesha rabbis for last night’s barbaric crime, but no one can say that the rabbis have waged war against Jewish youth who have lost their marbles.