Rabbi Chaim Druckman
Rabbi Chaim DruckmanFlash 90

The Head of the Center of Bnei Akiva Yeshivas, Rav Chaim Druckman, reacted forcefully to the burning of a mosque in the Bedouin Arab village of Tuba Sunday night.

"All of the actions that are undertaken under the headline 'Price Tag' are horrible, shocking, anti-Jewish and anti-morality," he said.

"Beyond the fact that they are reprehensible in themselves, they also cause severe damage to the settlement enterprise in the Land of Israel," he said.

The Kotel Rabbi, Rav Shmuel Rabinovich, denounced the suspected arson attack too. "The sites that are holy to all religions must remain outside the disputes between nations," he said. "There is no Torah authority figure who allows this kind of action and the individuals who carried out this criminal deed must be excoriated and denounced."

"We were all shocked by the damage wrought on synagogues in Gush Katif and elsewhere in the world," he added. "Let us not be like these hooligans."

Rabbis from northern Israel also published a denunciation of "Price Tag" operations. While voicing hope that the arson was not carried out from Jewish-nationalistic motives, they said that if it turns out to have been a Price Tag action, "we denounce this with the utmost force."

The act is "inhuman, immoral and certainly out of line with the Torah of Israel, and with the Jewish Halakha and its values," they pronounced. The rabbis who signed the letter include Rav Shear Yashuv HaCohen, former Chief Rabbi of Haifa, as well as Rav Chaim Burgansky of Mitzpeh Hoshaya, Rav Yehuda Gilad of Kibbutz Lavi, Rav Mordechai Zamir of Emek Israel, Rav Ronen Lubich of Kibbutz Nir Etzion, Rav Asi Blank of Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv, Rav Moshe Shefter of Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, Rav Shmuel Reiner of Mitzpeh Netufa, Rav David Bigman of Maaleh Gilboa Yeshiva, Rav Yosi Slotnik of Maaleh Gilboa, and Rav Avia Rosen of Midreshet Ein HaNatziv.