JERUSALEM (JTA) — A West Bank rabbi who co-authored “The King’s Torah,” a treatise on halachah, or Jewish law, that discusses situations in which Jews are permitted to kill non-Jews, was indicted for incitement to violence.
Rabbi Yosef Elitzur of the Yitzhar settlement was indicted Tuesday for two opinion articles he wrote in which he justifies civilians “taking action against the enemy,” the news website Ynet reported.
The Reform movement and the nongovernmental organization Tag Meir had filed a petition two years ago against the rabbi in light of the articles.
“It is high time Israel cease to tolerate the intolerable,” Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center, said in a statement. “A rabbi like him contaminates our Jewish tradition and pollutes our democracy. Freedom of speech ends when hate and violence are preached and practiced.”
An investigation into Elitzur and co-author Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira over the contents of “The King’s Torah” was closed in 2012 due to lack of evidence.
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