Remembering the Fallen Soldiers
It happens every year: News photographers and cameraman stake out a few chareidi population centers on Yom Hazikaron, the Israeli day of remembrance for fallen soldiers of the IDF, to catch a handful of chareidim who fail to stand still during the annual siren. These provocateurs can always count on finding a few youngsters who make a point of ignoring the siren and crossing busy streets back and forth while everyone else stands still. Naturally, this provides perfect fodder for journalists looking to stir up resentment and anger, while the rest of the chareidi community stands by helplessly, unable to do anything about the unfolding provocation.
Of course, chareidim do not believe in the practice of standing still during the siren, whether on Yom HaShoah or on Yom Hazikaron, a clearly non-Jewish custom that was somehow adopted by the State of Israel. But most chareidim show respect for the sensitivities of the rest of the country and refrain from publicly flouting the societal norms. In fact, if there is any group of agitators in this country who enjoy brazenly thumbing their noses at others’ sensibilities, it is the radical left. No one can forget the man who stood in front of a group of mispallelim in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur and made a show of eating ice cream, or the protestors who decided to scatter pitas outside the home of Minister Idit Silman on Chol Hamoed Pesach. That is not to say that this justifies the show of scorn on the part of troublemakers. The chareidim simply have their own way of honoring the memory of the deceased—not with flowers or sirens or by standing motionless for a minute, but through giving tzedokah and reciting Tehillim and Kaddish.
This is always a difficult time of year. This year, Yom Hazikaron begins on Tuesday night, since Yom Haatzmaut, the celebration of Israel’s independence, was moved up to Wednesday night and Thursday. At 8:00 in the evening after the day commemorating Israel’s fallen soldiers and the victims of terror, the country begins the festivities of Yom Haatzmaut. It is a bizarre juxtaposition that was inexplicably conceived by the founders of this country 77 years ago.
Every year, the Ministry of Defense publishes the tally of deaths that have taken place in Israel’s wars since the year 1860. This year, the total has reached 25,417. Over the past year, since the previous Yom Hazikaron, another 316 soldiers have been killed in the line of duty, and 61 wounded IDF veterans have died of their injuries and therefore been added to the list of fatalities of Israel’s wars. Today, there are 8,674 bereaved parents, 5,391 widows, 10,302 orphans, and 34,250 bereaved brothers and sisters in the State of Israel. That makes a total of 58,617 individuals who have lost first-degree family members, including 5,944 men, women, and children who have joined the circle of bereavement due to the Iron Swords War. Over the past year alone, 1,647 families were added to the ranks of the bereaved, including 487 parents, 85 widows, 163 orphans, and 912 siblings. The National Insurance Institute also publishes the number of civilians murdered in terror attacks since the year 1851, when the Jewish settlement was first established in Eretz Yisroel, and the total number of civilian fatalities reached 5,229 this year, including 800 children and youths below the age of 18. Seventy-nine individuals were murdered by terrorists since Yom Hazikaron last year. And from Simchas Torah 5783 until today, 934 civilians were killed, including 778 who were murdered on October 7. May Hashem avenge their blood.
Two Fatalities in Gaza
Two soldiers were killed last week: Neta Yitzchok Kahane Hy”d, a military agent in covert operations, and Ido Voloch Hy”d, a platoon commander in the armored corps. The two were killed in an encounter with terrorists in the Shejaiya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City. Voloch, a 21-year-old soldier from Yerushalayim, was a platoon commander in the “Iron Trails” brigade. Kahane, who was 19 years old and hailed from the community of Eitan, served in the Border Guard. Sadly, the soldiers were exposed to enemy gunfire because of the manner in which the war is being conducted. And the tragedy is compounded by the fact that Voloch was killed while attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers from the area.
The troops in the area were working on expanding the buffer zone on the Gazan side of the border. During the hours leading up to the incident, reservists in the 16th Brigade canvassed the eastern side of the Shejaiya neighborhood, which overlooks the western Negev, and destroyed a number of buildings and terror infrastructures. Soldiers from the Border Guard had set up an ambush in the area when they were attacked by armed terrorists, and the exchange of gunfire claimed the life of one member of the elite brigade and wounded several terrorists. It took about two hours to extract the wounded soldiers from the area, which was dense with construction, and the process included another five encounters with terrorists, who opened fire and launched anti-tank missiles at the Israeli forces. One of the soldiers helping to rescue the wounded victims was moderately injured at that time, and about 40 minutes later, the terrorists fired additional RPGs at the tanks participating in the operation. This was when the platoon commander in the armored corps was killed by a direct strike on his vehicle from an anti-tank missile. Two other reservists were wounded during the final exchange of fire.
Of course, this incident evoked criticism against the army. The parents of several soldiers complained that the army, as a matter of policy, does not exercise its ability to demolish buildings from the air, to avoid harming “uninvolved” Gazans. Instead, the buildings are left intact, providing the terrorists with hiding places from which they can launch deadly attacks on Israeli soldiers. The soldiers in these areas are essentially sitting ducks. The army responded to these charges only with the assurance that it would investigate the matter.
Unprecedented Incitement Against Netanyahu
Every Jew in Israel is anguished by the plight of the hostages in Gaza. Lat week, a group of former hostages took part in the annual March of the Living in Auschwitz. Rav Yisroel Meir Lau and President Yitzchok Herzog were present, but the media took the greatest interest in the Holocaust survivors and the survivors of Hamas captivity who participated in the event, especially Eli Sharabi. His speech at the event moved his audience to tears.
As the negotiations between Israel and Hamas grow increasingly shaky, the protestors demonstrating against Netanyahu are ramping up the pressure on the Israeli prime minister. It is sad to see Israelis faulting Netanyahu for the captives’ plight rather than blaming Hamas. One newspaper even made the appalling assertion that “the living hostages might become corpses because of Netanyahu.” This is part of a relentless campaign of incitement against the prime minister. And this is only one example of the many vitriolic comments and expressions of hatred against the prime minister that have reached an unprecedented level. The state prosecution, meanwhile, refuses to investigate the incitement against the prime minister, which has led the prosecutors to be accused of selective enforcement.
Netanyahu, for his part, is stepping up the military pressure on Hamas with the understanding that it is the only way to force them to bend.
Meanwhile, Hamas is continuing its psychological warfare. First of all, the terror group recently publicized a sign of life from Omri Miran, for the first time since a video was released last year showing him together with Keith Siegel. Siegel was later freed in February, together with Ofer Calderon and Yarden Bibas. The Miran family released the following statement to the media in response to the latest video: “It is the eve of Yom HaShoah, the day when we declare ‘never again,’ and an Israeli citizen is crying out for help from the Hamas tunnels. This is a disgrace to the State of Israel. Our Omri is strong and will not be broken, but our hearts are broken. He and 58 other hostages have been waiting for a year and a half to be brought home. We will not give in, and we will continue fighting until Omri returns to us, especially to his two daughters, who are yearning with all their hearts to embrace him.”
In recent weeks, Hamas has also released videos of Eden Alexander, Ram Breslavski, Bar Kuperstein, Maxim Herkin, Yosef Chaim Ochana, and Elkanah Bochbot.
Ronen Bar Makes His Case to the Court
The feud between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar is far from over. Last week, at the request of the judges hearing the case against his dismissal, Bar submitted a long affidavit presenting his position. The media pounced on the affidavit and publicized its contents in great detail, seizing the opportunity to malign the prime minister once again.
One of Bar’s claims is that Netanyahu tried to force him to accept a legal opinion authored by the prime minister, which asserted that the security situation made it impossible for Netanyahu to testify in Tel Aviv every day. Bar also insisted that Netanyahu decided to dismiss him from his position because of the Shin Bet’s investigation into the prime minister’s aides, meaning that the dismissal was politically motivated. (Netanyahu has already responded to this allegation several times, insisting that the converse is true: The Shin Bet launched its investigation only to create a pretext to block Bar’s dismissal.) The Shin Bet director added that Netanyahu removed him from the team involved in negotiating for the hostages’ release solely due to personal considerations, and that the prime minister expressed a lack of faith in the Shin Bet director only after Bar refused to go along with his wishes. Bar also insisted that the accusations that he had failed in his responsibilities at the time of the Simchas Torah massacre constitute incitement, and that Netanyahu tried to compel him to use the Shin Bet to quash the protests against him. To this, Netanyahu responded that the Shin Bet has always been used to isolate elements within public protests who might pose a danger to the heads of the state.
This week, Netanyahu submitted his own affidavit, in which he debunked each of Bar’s arguments. He had already accused Bar of lying in a public statement last week, but that accusation now appears in a signed document that has been submitted to the court. At the end of the document, Netanyahu asserts, “Ronen Bar failed in his mission as head of the Shin Bet and lost the faith of the entire Israeli government in his ability to continue leading the Shin Bet. That is the real reason for his dismissal.” Netanyahu also insisted that the government has the authority and discretion to choose to appoint or fire the director of the Shin Bet at any time.
The next step is for the judges to rule on the petitions. It is hard to predict what they will do. Will the judges actually have the audacity to strike down the government’s decision to dismiss Bar? It is hard to imagine that they would do that. Moreover, just two weeks ago, the judges tried to come up with some sort of arbitration arrangement that would prevent them from having to rule on this case, but they failed to come up with a solution. They are now going to have no choice but to issue a verdict.
I plan to write a separate article dealing with the respective affidavits filed by Ronen Bar and the prime minister, who have long been embroiled in a public clash. In this column, I will merely point out Ronen Bar’s conceit. The great tragedies that have befallen this country were orchestrated by Divine decree, but the hubris of many high-ranking Israeli officials was the vehicle for the disasters to take place. This is a scenario that has played out time and again: A high-ranking official in the Mossad or the Military Intelligence Directorate sat in his office and constructed a thesis, and once he had made up his mind, nothing could cause him to question his conclusions, even a hard, solid fact. This arrogance has led to many tragedies, including the Yom Kippur War and the massacre on Simchas Torah. These two calamities were separated by 50 years, but each of them demonstrates the perils of being locked into a false conception by pride and obstinacy. Whenever a hear a high-ranking official or politician boasting about the “long arm” of Israel’s army or the like, I find myself cringing. Even Netanyahu’s speech in honor of Yom HaShoah grated on me. And I find it downright frightening when all the former national security experts boast about their own abilities and accomplishments in news studios and at public demonstrations. These are men with inflated egos who are absolutely certain that they are the only ones who truly understand anything—and are absolutely wrong.
Ronen Bar suffers from the same plague of hubris, which affects not only his attitude but his actions as well. The letter that he sent to the members of the cabinet is just one example of his arrogance. And if anyone doubted that he is blinded by his conceit, it was confirmed by Amit Assa, a former high-ranking Shin Bet official and Ronen Bar’s mentor, who released a sharply worded statement accusing Bar of dangerous arrogance that caused a series of failures leading up to the events of October 7. In a message to the man who used to be his subordinate, Assa wrote, “I have learned an important lesson from you: A conceited person is more dangerous than anyone else. His decisions have the potential to destroy moral values, to harm national unity, and even to lead to a civil war.” He claimed that Bar chose to act alone rather than sharing critical information on the day of the attack due to his inflated ego. In addition, he accused the current head of the Shin Bet of maintaining a political agenda that he forced on the operatives in the field. “Your arrogance has transformed the Shin Bet from a statesmanlike organization to one that serves a personal and political agenda,” he wrote scathingly.
In any case on Monday Bar finally announced that he was resigning effective June 15.
Hatred Warps the Mind
It is amazing to observe how the public mindset can be twisted and shaped through sophisticated manipulation. Thanks to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s detractors, the word “Bibiist,” the term used for a fan of Israel’s premier, has become a derogatory term. If the political right were in control of the media, then it might be possible to slap labels on the left accusing them of hubris and incitement, but there is no way to change these perceptions without the support of the media. And the chareidi community suffers from these media machinations more than anyone else. Secular journalists and politicians have managed to inject the concept of a “draft-dodging law” into the vernacular. Propaganda, especially the variety that is suffused with venom and hate, can always be counted on to make an impact, and the subliminal message conveyed by this term—that yeshiva bochurim are slackers who are guilty of shirking their duty to the country—has penetrated minds throughout the nation. One wonders if the religious community might take advantage of the same tool, perhaps by making sure to attach quotation marks to every reference to the “chief justice” of the “Supreme” Court. Perhaps that will serve to undermine the judges’ veneer of authority.
Last Tuesday, the media reported on the affidavit that Ronen Bar submitted to the Supreme Court. As I mentioned, Netanyahu denounced the report as a series of lies and even enumerated some of the falsehoods. His reaction was covered by the media in the most skewed fashion imaginable. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of journalistic ethics or impartiality in the articles; the writers did not even pretend to be unbiased. Haaretz, for instance, threw itself into an all-out attack on Netanyahu, with a headline that quoted Bar as asserting, “The prime minister called on me to listen to him instead of the Supreme Court in the event of a constitutional crisis.” Alongside the article were teasers for four opinion pieces: “Incapacitation now,” “He started the war,” “A walking disgrace,” and “A lesson on loyalty to the homeland.” Of course, all of those articles were vicious attacks on the prime minister, and the rest of the newspaper’s coverage on this subject was written in the same spirit. The well-known Dina Zilber hailed Ronen Bar’s affidavit as epitomizing love for Israel. On the fourth page, another headline declared in large letters, “Netanyahu has emerged as a frightening figure focused on dismantling democracy for his own sake; his judgment cannot be trusted.”
The other newspapers weren’t much better. The first page of Yediot Acharonot was dedicated completely to Ronen Bar, while the Prime Minister’s Office was quoted only at the bottom of the page asserting that Bar’s affidavit was false. Here, too, there were four opinion pieces teased alongside the front-page story: “A few centimeters from the abyss,” “Netanyahu has crossed every red line,” “There is no choice: We need an investigation now,” and “Bar is making a sacrifice for all of us.” Turn the page, and you will find a few more choice lines: “Netanyahu must go,” “Investigate Netanyahu now,” and “We are one step away from a dictatorship.”
On Yom HaShoah, Netanyahu was late for his appearance at an event in Yad Vashem. Putting aside the reckless arrogance of his speech, in which he boasted of Israel’s prowess at defeating its enemies, let us focus on the media’s reaction to his tardiness, which was forced on him by some sort of drone that seemed to pose a threat to his convoy. The next day, the news reported only that the prime minister arrived late for the memorial service. Any impartial news editor would have added the reason: The Shin Bet shot down a drone that was following his motorcade. But the Israeli media apparently saw no reason to fill in the full story. They have simply been driven mad by their hatred.
Failed Army Officers Give Unwanted Advice
Last Thursday, several newspapers carried large advertisements attributed to “leaders of the defense establishment in recent decades.” These former officials argued that Netanyahu poses a clear, immediate danger to the security of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. But perhaps someone should tell them that no one is particularly impressed by the opinions of former army officials. I have met some of these men, and I haven’t been impressed. MK Ram Ben-Barak, for instance, was the deputy head of the Mossad, but his judgment doesn’t strike me as being particularly sound. Today, he is one of the most bizarre and eccentric members of the Knesset. The signatories on the ad include former chiefs of staff Dan Chalutz and Bogie Yaalon, former Shin Bet director Carmi Gilon, and even Ehud Barak. Is the rest of the country really supposed to listen to these men? Are they truly in any position to preach to the rest of us?
I read the main arguments in the advertisement, and if you will forgive me for saying this, my impression was that its authors are growing irrational and forgetful in their old age. For instance, they accused Netanyahu of strengthening Hamas; to be honest, I would say that they are the ones who should be blamed for that. They also had the audacity to claim that Netanyahu had ulterior motives for resuming the fighting in Gaza. What chutzpah! And then they added, “Netanyahu’s defense of the members of his staff who are under investigation raises suspicions.” That is absolutely absurd; Netanyahu’s support for his employees shows only that he is a fair and decent employer (at least in this case) and that he does not abandon his friends.
I was especially irked by the next line: “The advancement of the draft dodging law … erodes the model of the army of the people and detracts from the army’s ability to carry out its tasks.” The advertisement goes on to declare sanctimoniously, “The Supreme Court’s decision regarding the draft must be obeyed.” Let me respond to this claim by noting that if anyone is causing the army to crumble, it is the liberal activists, including the men who signed this ad, who have called for reservists to refuse to show up for duty and who have advocated violent protests. They are the ones who promote draft evasion. As for obeying the Supreme Court verdict, that is exactly what Netanyahu is doing: He is heeding the court’s ruling by insisting on the passage of a revised draft law, or at least a law that is more stringent than the one that was struck down.
Hypocrisy and Democracy
On the subject of political advertisements, a few days ago, dozens of senior police officials released an advertisement under the title, “In Defense of the Police and Democracy,” proclaiming their support for democracy, the rule of law, and all sorts of other important-sounding ideals. One of the signatories was a man with a familiar name: a former superintendent who was heavily involved in the investigations into the Shas party many years ago, when he served as a high-ranking officer in Lahav 433, the National Fraud Investigation Unit. I couldn’t help but scoff at the ad. These people claim to be the champions of democracy and the rule of law, but that is absurd. In those days, Lahav 433 brutally trampled every law in the book, and their tactics haven’t changed at all; this week, the country was appalled to hear that an interrogator had challenged Yonasan Urich, “Do you want to see your little daughter? Then sign!” We all know exactly what he was being pressured to sign: an agreement to turn state witness against Netanyahu. In the days of the Shas investigation, they wrote the name “Deri” on a piece of paper (instead of uttering it verbally and being caught on tape) and said to us, “This is the man we want.” They tried to bully Deri’s aides by threatening to take their children away for adoption. They were so blatantly corrupt and primitive that we even laughed at them. Yes, I include myself in this story; yours truly was one of the aides who was taken for questioning at that time. When I returned to the Knesset, I made sure that the MKs submitted parliamentary queries about the treatment we had undergone. One of the questions received a galling response: the complete denial that anything had happened at all. The investigators brazenly lied to the minister who received the question, and he relayed their false response to the Knesset.
I turned to Roni Milo, who served as minister of police at the time, and said to him, “This incident happened to me, and I can tell you that it is true. How can they claim that it didn’t happen?”
“What do you want me to do about it?” he replied.
In that incident, many years ago, I was taken into custody from my home, as were other employees in the interior minister’s office. We were brought to the headquarters of the National Fraud Investigation Unit, and I was informed that night that I was to remain in custody, whereupon I was hauled off to the Abu Kabir detention facility. The official who signed the order for my arrest was the same man who signed the advertisement expressing concern for the future of democracy. At that time, I said to him, “You are certainly aware that you are violating the law.” An arrest is permitted by the law only to prevent danger to the public or to prevent a suspect from tampering with an investigation. But my arrest was intended only to create the impression that there was some substance to the allegations against me, or to coerce me to make a false confession. In response to my challenge, the officer merely puffed on his pipe, blew smoke rings in the air, and laughed. And now this man, who was not deterred from pursuing his witch hunt by the fact that he was violating the law, has the audacity to preach to the country about democracy and morality!
And the government misconduct in those days went even further. For a long time, many Knesset members from Shas and other parties complained about the constant flow of leaked information reaching the media from the police and the prosecution. The response was always the same: “We are not leaking anything. The suspects in these cases have the same information; perhaps they are the ones who are leaking it.” Police Minister Roni Milo said to me vehemently, “If you show us even a single case in which it is undeniable that the police were responsible for leaking information, I will deal with it with all due severity.” A short time later, the police raided the Gal Paz store in Geulah in search of a particular cassette tape. They even went so far as to confiscate all the cassettes in my home (which haven’t been returned to this day). This time, I had all the evidence I needed; I notified Milo that the press had shown up on Rechov Malchei Yisroel half an hour before the raid, and it could only have been the police who tipped them off. This was clear evidence that the police were leaking information to the media. And do you know what Milo did about it? Absolutely nothing!
Every Vote Is Critical
I don’t know if there will be an election anytime soon, but we should take care to learn an important lesson from the two recent rounds of municipal elections in the city of Kiryat Shmonah, which took place at the end of Shevat and the beginning of Adar. The second round of elections was won by the incumbent mayor, Avichai Stern. The final tally yielded 5214 votes for Stern and 4092 votes for his opponent, Eli Zafrani, who had the support of Netanyahu and the Likud party. The difference between the two candidates’ totals amounted to only 1100 votes, a relatively small number that happens to be a large percentage of the total number of votes cast. If Zafrani had managed to attract another 600 voters who cast their ballots for Stern, he would have won the election. In short, every vote can be critical.
This fact, which should be remembered by every chareidi voter in Israel in every election, becomes even more apparent when one examines the results of the first round of voting, which took place two weeks earlier. Out of the 19,635 residents (remember, many of the city’s residents had been evacuated), a total of 10,238 individuals actually exercised their right to vote. About 500 ballots were invalidated, which is a relatively large number. In the first round, Stern received 4068 votes, or 39.7 percent of the total, while Eli Zafrani received 3086 votes, or 29.5 percent. The third candidate, Ofir Yechezkel, came in just behind him with 3026 votes, almost the same percentage of the total.
Now, consider the following: Stern and Zafrani were the ones who made it to the runoff election, but if Ofir Yechezkel had siphoned off just a few isolated votes from Zafrani in the first round, he would have been the one vying against Stern in the runoff. Those few votes could have made a world of difference. This illustrates the importance of every vote and the perils of apathy; any voter staying home on the day of an election might unwittingly sway the outcome. And there is more: With a few more votes, Avichai Stern could have won the election in the first round and spared himself and his supporters from the hysteria and hullabaloo of a second election. When he received 39.7 percent of the total vote, he fell short of the threshold for winning the election, which is set at 40 percent of the total vote, by only a handful of individual votes—27, to be precise. With just a tiny bit of gain in the first election, he could have been declared the winner immediately.
Fake Kashrus Doesn’t Interest the Police
Reports emerged about a meat factory in Deir al-Assad that is strongly suspected, according to a statement from the Rabbinate, of affixing bogus kashrus seals to treif meat. This is yet another attempt to trick naïve, well-meaning Jewish people into buying nonkosher food. In my personal opinion, part of the reason for this scourge is that there aren’t enough complaints filed with the authorities against kashrus forgers.
Last year, at the end of Nissan, a parliamentary query was filed on the subject, accompanied by two notices issued by the rabbonim of Bnei Brak concerning two cases in which their hechsher was forged. One of the incidents involved a bakery and was decried by the rabbonim as a “a serious act of counterfeiting and severely misleading the public,” and the other concerned a brand of milk chocolate and was likewise denounced as severe deception. Both notices were appended to the parliamentary query, along with all the other details necessary for an investigation to be opened. The minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was asked a number of questions: “Were complaints submitted to the police in each of these cases? If so, what did the investigations determine in these two serious incidents? How many cases of falsified kashrus certifications have the police investigated over the past five years, and what were the results of each investigation? How many cases led to criminal charges, and how many cases were closed?”
The questions were sharp and focused, but Minister Ben-Gvir managed to sidestep the main point. “No complaints were filed with the Israeli police about the two specified cases,” he wrote, adding that the police database was searched for the names of the products and of the rabbonim whose names appeared on the query, and there were no results. Then he added, “Regarding question 3, I must inform you that referring a parliamentary query to the police is not the same as filing a complaint. A police complaint must be filed at the police station or online. If you have materials in your possession that support these contentions and provide a basis for suspicion, they should be attached to the complaint. A complaint may also be filed with the Chief Rabbinate.”
In my view, this response was treif. Why shouldn’t a parliamentary query be sufficient to trigger a police investigation? And why did he claim that there was a need for evidence of the contentions? What further details were needed, when all the relevant information appeared in the notices? And why did he ignore the additional questions? If this is the way the government relates to these cases, no one should be surprised by the fact that this phenomenon is growing. The message is clear: The police do not really care about kashrus forgeries.
Rav Ovadiah’s Archives
Several years ago, I reviewed the records of all the interviews that Rav Ovadiah Yosef granted to the secular media. During his tenure as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, and then during his time as the chief rabbi of Israel, Rav Ovadiah was occasionally interviewed in the press due to his prominent positions. His son, Rav Yitzchok Yosef, has a large, well-organized archive that includes a thick binder filled with newspaper clippings concerning his father. Rav Yitzchok once graciously allowed me to peruse the binder’s contents, and I used the material to compile a lengthy article detailing a number of themes that ran through all of Rav Ovadiah’s interviews, such as his unequivocal positions on the chinuch of children, the severe prohibition of studying in schools attended by both boys and girls, and the obligation for parents to enroll their children in schools providing a pure education untainted by external subjects. Rav Ovadiah spoke fearlessly, taking a firm stand against cutting corners in any way. Daas Torah is daas Torah, after all, even when someone finds it hard to hear or accept. In fact, Rav Ovadiah once remarked, “How can a young girl be expected to internalize the fact that she should never eat anything without reciting a brocha, if she sees her teacher drinking water without saying a brocha?”
The consistency of Rav Ovadiah’s views is evident in my own humble archives as well. In the month of Teves 5750/1989, Rav Ovadiah wrote a letter to Rav Eliyohu Rashid of Netivot, enthusiastically encouraging him to open a school that would provide a pure Torah education. Rav Ovadiah pledged to help him recruit students, acquire government funding, and obtain an allocation of land; he revealed that he had contacted Rav Shimon Baadani to ask him to appeal to the bnei Torah living in Netivot to register their daughters in the school, and that he planned to ask Aryeh Deri to see to it that the school would be properly funded and would have the opportunity to thrive.
I recently came across another fascinating letter, which was written to Rav Meshullam Tzubari, the rov of Gan Yavneh. “I was very pleased to hear that the rov wishes to open a school with complete segregation between boys and girls,” Rav Ovadiah wrote. “I remember that some wicked people once wished to open a mixed school in the city of Netivot, and Rav Raphael Hillel, the menahel of the Ohr Hachaim seminary in Bnei Brak, brought me along with a delegation of rabbonim to the great tzaddik Rav Yisroel Abuchatzeirah, who lived there. We told him with great anguish about the plans for the mixed school, and he spoke out harshly against those evildoers, speaking extremely painful words. He shared with us his pain and anguish over the deterioration in tznius in our generation, which has sadly declined significantly, and he mentioned that the reason for the spread of the disease of cancer, which has already taken the lives of many people, young and old alike, is the lack of kedusha and tznius. He explained that it was first due to the mingling of men and women, especially in the public schools, where boys and girls learn in mixed classes, and also due to the lack of tznius…. Because of this, the attribute of judgment is in force. He even asked me on that occasion to prepare a kol korei, and we composed an open letter on this subject, and the Baba Sali signed it at that time.”
