Days before Israelis vote, one of the country’s most senior rabbis told religious Jews that supporting a party in the governing coalition is a religious offense.
The reason isn’t economics or security policy. It’s the Temple Mount.
Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef ruled that Jewish law prohibits supporting the Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir because of Ben-Gvir’s visits to the Temple Mount and his encouragement of others to visit the site. In his letter, Rabbi Yosef wrote that ascending the Mount carries the risk of violating a prohibition punishable by karet (spiritual excision), one of the gravest penalties in Jewish law. Anyone who backs such a party, he wrote, is regarded “as though he himself” had committed that transgression.
Ben-Gvir is unlikely to heed the rabbi’s words. On Sukkot he offered a prayer and called for Israeli sovereignty over the site, declaring “we are the masters...
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