New details emerge on the Bnei Brak murder of Rabbi Yishai Por

About a month after the murder of Rabbi Yishai Por at the “Chazon Ish” kollel study hall in Bnei Brak on the eve of Shavuot, new testimony is revealing the dispute that preceded the killing and Por’s unusual character. Accounts published in the weekly bulletin Koveitz Gilyonot and reported by B’Chadrei Charedim say the killer, Guy Achtlinger, repeatedly provoked Por on matters tied to honoring the sages of Israel.

According to the reports, the final confrontation came days before the murder, when Achtlinger disparaged the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, while Por was studying his book Mesilat Yesharim. Por protested sharply. Friends warned him that Achtlinger was unstable and dangerous, but Por refused to remain silent. Among Por’s papers, after his death, was an undelivered letter calling fellow students to strengthen themselves by studying Mesilat Yesharim as a spiritual protest against the contempt expressed inside the study hall. He did not live to post it.

On the day of the killing, 4 Sivan, Por was sitting at his shtender with a book of the Bible open in front of him and his son beside him, when Achtlinger attacked and murdered him. The testimonies also portray Por as an ascetic, one who did not carry a mobile phone, avoided non-study conversations, and would walk the streets of Bnei Brak absorbed in thought to the point that he did not notice people greeting him.

In nights when young learners arrived and there was no room left for him, he slept on a wooden bench in the women’s section of the study hall. Since the outbreak of the war on Simchat Torah 5784, his friends said, he had not slept in his own bed as a sign of solidarity with the dead and the hostages. Por leaves behind his wife and son. After the murder, the kollel’s students undertook to complete the entire Talmud in his memory and to strengthen their study of Mesilat Yesharim, the book whose author Por had sought to defend in his final moments.