Liberman backpedals on demand that pre-army yeshiva head resign
Defense Minister says he will limit size of program after AG rules he doesn’t have authority for ultimatum against Yigal Levinstein over sexist remarks
The Defense Ministry on Wednesday called off its plans to defund a pre-army program for comments made by one of its leaders that disparaged female soldiers, but announced its intention to restrict the number of students as a punitive measure instead.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had summoned Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, one of the heads of the Bnei David Preparatory academy in the settlement of Eli, after he had refused to respond to an ultimatum to resign or have the school’s Defense Ministry funding cut.
Levinstein came under fire earlier this month after being recorded railing against female conscription in the army and saying female soldiers were “crazy” and no longer Jewish.
But Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit reportedly told Liberman Tuesday he did not have the authority to cut off the school, which includes a hesder yeshiva combining Torah study with IDF service, or fire the rabbi.
Liberman had requested that Levinstein, along with the other heads of the academy and hesder yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Eli, appear at the Defense Ministry Thursday to respond to an ultimatum that would sever official recognition and funding from the institution if he failed to resign.
In the new letter, the ministry said it is no longer summoning Levinstein, but said it would limit how many students could postpone army service.
Currently, the Bnei David preparatory program has no limit on the number of participants who get their army service postponed, unlike other programs that have such a restriction, the ministry said.
This is unfair, the ministry wrote in a letter to the head of the program, Rabbi Eli Sadan on Wednesday. The letter invited Sadan to a meeting next Wednesday with Liberman to discuss the matter.
Though Liberman earlier threatened to cut the program’s funding, the ministry said its decision to put in place previously unknown quotas on the institution was made “regardless of the Rabbi Levinstein’s remarks.”
The video of Levinstein had prompted outcries of condemnation from across the political spectrum, but Levinstein remained resolved in his opposition to female soldiers.
On Tuesday Levinstein issued an apology for his words.
In a letter to students and graduates of the Eli pre-army program, Levinstein said that while some of his comments were “taken out of context,” the tone was “inappropriate” and that it “wasn’t right to denigrate” the female soldiers.
“I was wrong,” he wrote, even as he defended the idea behind his comments, saying that “women have been taken hostage by the feminist movement.”
Levinstein said he felt it was his duty to prepare his students for the reality of the IDF.
