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Sunday, June 8, 2025
Haredi leaders attribute arson at top rabbi’s shul to ‘incitement’ over conscription fight
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Senior ultra-Orthodox political figures blame last night’s arson attack against former chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef’s Or Habib synagogue in Jerusalem on anti-Haredi “incitement” relating to the fight over the military conscription of yeshiva students.
In a statement, United Torah Judaism MK Yisrael Eichler claims that whoever set the synagogue on fire was seeking to “incite civil war” and warns that “the antisemitic campaign being waged against the Torah world is liable to result in bloodshed.”
The phrase “the Torah world” refers to the network of full-time yeshivas that form the backbone of ultra-Orthodox society.
“The antisemitic incitement in the media and the government persecution of the holy ones of Israel, Torah students, and the observant must immediately cease.”
Yosef is the spiritual leader of the Sephardic Shas party and a vocal opponent of efforts to conscript the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF, and has come under intense criticism for statements calling for Haredim to leave Israel if draft dodgers are arrested. He recently called Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Yuli Edelstein “wicked” for demanding tough sanctions on yeshiva students who evade military service.
Last month, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman filed a criminal complaint against Yosef over his instruction to yeshiva students to tear up and flush enlistment orders.
In a statement, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri calls the arson “a serious hate crime” aimed not only at the former chief rabbi but against “an entire traditional public and against the values of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”
Such incidents “must not be allowed to become a daily occurrence,” he says, adding that the Shin Bet security service is treating the incident as “a nationalist terrorist attack” and that until the government can increase Yosef’s security, he will provide a private guard at the rabbi’s home.
Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur (Shas) calls the arson “a direct result of the serious incitement raging against the rabbi and against Torah students in the holy land,” while Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush (UTJ) blames the incident on “rampant incitement against Torah students by public figures led by the attorney general.”
Both UTJ chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf and MK Moshe Gafni, the chairman of UTJ’s Degel HaTorah faction, release statements condemning the incident, without actively assigning blame.
The Times of Israel Community.