Rabbi accused of inciting troops to disobey orders

Shalom Dov Wolpo allegedly offered soldiers NIS 1,000 per day spent in military prison for refusal to dismantle settlements

By Gavriel Fiske

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11 March 2014, 4:46 pm Edit

Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel

A prominent anti-Zionist, right-wing Chabad rabbi, Shalom Dov Wolpo, and his assistant, Shabtai Weintraub, were on Tuesday charged with inciting IDF soldiers to disobey direct orders.

According to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s office, the rabbis contacted soldiers in the Kfir Brigade in an attempt to persuade them to disobey potential orders to evacuate Jewish West Bank settlements or outposts.

Allegedly, the soldiers were offered NIS 1,000 ($287) for each day they would spend in military prison as a result of their disobedience.

Wolpo has a history of entanglements with the authorities for his political activism, which generally challenges Israeli secular state authority. In the past, he has agitated for West Bank settlements to secede from Israel proper to form a new, religious Jewish state.

Most recently, he was one of the rabbis who signed a letter in early February denouncing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace efforts.