Rabbi calls for killing Jewish leaders cooperating with Arab parties, invokes religious doctrine

Gedalia Axelrod, a former head of the Haifa Rabbinical Court and the former leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic community in Haifa, has issued a letter invoking a religious doctrine which calls for the killing of the Jewish political leaders who cooperate with Arab parties, Haaretz reported on Thursday. In his letter, Axelrod wrote that colluding with Arab parties in Israel “poses a terrible danger to the people of Israel in the Holy Land and around the world.”

He invoked din rodef — a religious decree applied to grave offenders, giving halachic approval to use lethal force, even if this requires killing them. The term din rodef means “law of the pursuer,” which became famous after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, who pursued the then ongoing peace between Israel and Palestine through the “Oslo Accords”. The term was then invoked by the assassin Yigal Amir as a justification for the killing.

"Rabbi Axelrod is not a member of this court and does not fill a function in the leadership of Chabad. His words and letters reflect his own personal opinion," said Rabbi Shimi Segal, spokesperson of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement in Israel.

A group of former heads of Israel's security services and military called on the police to investigate Axelrod on suspicion of incitement to murder.

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Arab party Joint List MK Ofer Cassif said that "We are right now in a very sensitive period of leadership change following the election."

"It is clearly incumbent upon the law enforcement authorities to operate with particular vigilance during this period against anyone who threatens, incites or legitimises killing elected officials for exercising the public mandate given to them," he added.

Rabbinical Court is part of Israel's state-run rabbinical court system. It operates under the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to handle matters of Jewish personal status, such as marriage, divorce, and conversion. Chabad Lubavitch is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement and one of the largest in the world, with footprints in more than 100 countries. It is often linked to names like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Jared Kushner, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mark Zuckerberg and Alan Dershowitz.

The letter emerges as Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party has been tasked with forming the next government of Israel. He had said he would invite parties that met certain conditions to join his coalition, including the Arab parties. Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, had also expressed support for including Arab parties in a government.