In Haredi community shocker, top rabbi said overruled in bid to reopen yeshivas

21 April 2020, 11:18 pm

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Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, perhaps the leading living ultra-Orthodox authority, was overruled yesterday by a lesser rabbi after he called to immediately reopen yeshivas, Channel 12 reports.

Kanievsky, of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community in Bnei Brak, signed a letter calling for Torah studies to resume immediately at institutions, while maintaining hygiene precautions, saying it was “a holy obligation” to reopen them, the report says.

But in a move many in the community call shocking, the Lithuanian sect’s weekly newspaper Yated Ne’eman refused to publish it after Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, another top leader in the community but usually seen as a lesser authority, forbade it.

Associates of Kanievsky deny the report.