Friday, March 7, 2008

Merkaz Harav Yeshiva: Stronghold of Zionist Extremism


Al-Manar

"07/03/2008 The Palestinian resistance took once again the initiative with a heroic operation executed on Thursday killing eight settlers at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva extremist school.

The importance of the operation cannot be limited to breaking all Israeli measures and proving the strength of the resistance; it is the location of the operation.

Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, or the Jewish religious school in Jerusalem, is neither an ordinary religious school nor a faculty that just trains and graduates rabbis; it is actually the main stronghold for the Zionist radicalism in the Zionist entity. It's a landmark for the religious Zionist movement and a symbol for the foundation of the usurper entity, Israel. Moreover, Merkaz Harav Yeshiva is the first religious school that founded a relation between the Zionist and Jewish beliefs. The extremist school contains more than 500 students and another 200 higher education students in Jewish religious sciences, with all of them aged between 18 and 30.

The radical Merkaz Harav Yeshiva was founded in 1924 by senior rabbi Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, who sought, from the beginning, to teach the Torah and graduate spiritual leaders for the entity that wasn't even created yet.

The first commander of Irgun extremist groups David Raziel and the founder of the prominent Israeli Daily Ma'arif Azriel Carlebach were among the first graduates of the seminary under the direction of Kook.


On April 9, 1948, members of the underground Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, or IZL, led by Menachem Begin, who was to become the Israeli prime minister in 1977, entered the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin, massacred 250 men, women, children and the elderly, and stuffed many of the bodies down wells. There were also reports of rapes and mutilations. The Irgun was joined by the Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who subsequently succeeded Begin as prime minister of Israel in the early '80s, and also by the Haganah, the militia under the control of David Ben Gurian. The Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Haganah later joined to form the so called Israeli Defense Force. Their tactics have not changed ever since.

When rabbi Yitzchak HaCohen passed away, his son rabbi Zvi Yehudah assumed responsibility and the centre that started to attract all theology students in the Zionist entity. However, the major contribution of this school was organizing the relation between theology students and serving in the army.

Year after year, the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva was 'prospering' until establishing the basics of the so-called religious settlement in the West Bank. Moreover, the political and religious group "Gush Emunim" was founded within the school, called for settling in Palestine and believed that the Land was a gift from God to the Jews.

Rabbi Zvi wasn't less enthusiastic than his pupils. He encouraged them to protect the settlements in the West Bank and personally took part in this process. He was also among the first to promote the settlement of the Jews in the wake of 1967 war.
Yehudah passed away in 1982 and rabbi Avraham Shapira succeeded him.
His era witnessed differences inside the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva leading a group of students under the leadership of rabbi Zvi Tau to quit. Tau founded an institution that remained less influential than Merkaz Harav Yeshiva."

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