Haredi MKs denounced National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for allowing Rabbis to be questioned about illegal construction.
A sharp confrontation developed this morning between the UTJ party and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, after the Israel Land Authority summoned Rabbis from Bnei Brak for questioning regarding illegal construction.
The haredi newspaper Yated Ne’eman wrote: “At the Minister Ben-Gvir’s direction, Rabbis were summoned for questioning solely because of their spiritual role.”
Party leader Moshe Gafni declared in the publication: “The summons for questioning of a great Rabbi is an act suitable for dictatorial regimes. We will not allow this to happen.”
Interior Committee chairman Yaakov Asher was quoted as saying: “It is inconceivable that such a serious harm to the honor of the Torah would occur.”
The confrontation began after the agency operating under the Ministry of National Security summoned two important Rabbis from Bnei Brak for questioning, Rabbi Masoud Ben Shimon, and Rabbi Shimon Galai.
The Bnei Brak municipality has already published a harsh statement on the matter, calling the move “crossing a red line that has no precedent” and “a blatant intervention in freedom of religion and worship.”
The statement claimed that the rabbis were summoned for questioning arbitrarily only because their names appear as synagogue Rabbis, despite having no connection to construction, planning, or licensing procedures.
The mayor, Hanoch Zeibert, said: “This is harm not only to the rabbi’s honor but to an entire community that appreciates and respects its rabbis and spiritual leaders.” Deputy mayor Menachem Shapiro added: “We are facing a dangerous watershed where enforcement authorities are trying to intimidate rabbis because of their spiritual role.”
The municipality claims that other places of worship are being overlooked. “It seems that only against synagogues and Torah institutions is a hard and disproportionate hand applied.”
The municipality added that the summons for questioning in the midst of a dialogue process constitutes “serious harm to these efforts, creates tensions, and disrupts the possibility of negotiating a solution.”
