Rabbi Dov Lando, the Lithuanian-Litvak community leader, delivered an unusually harsh attack on Israel’s government and judiciary during a closed fundraising event in the United States on Monday night. He said the situation in Israel was “hard and terrible” and added of the authorities, “May God help us get rid of them.”
The remarks were made at a special dinner at the home of donor Meir Volmark in Phettown, Lakewood, New Jersey, as part of an emergency U.S. fundraising tour by yeshiva heads. The campaign aims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the Lithuanian Torah world after yeshiva budgets were completely halted under a High Court ruling.
Speaking to donors, the 96-year-old rabbinic leader portrayed the fight over military draft legislation and public funding as direct persecution of Torah study. He said that in Israel, “the great and terrible difficulties we have from the authorities and the judicial authority, and all those who pursue the Torah world, the yeshivas, the married scholars who learn, they harass us in every possible way, cut off their livelihood, and do to them every possible trouble.”
Lando also appealed for broad support from American Jews, saying the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel is facing severe financial distress. “Now we are in a difficult situation, and we came to our dear brothers of the house of Israel in the U.S. to help and assist us,” he said. He added that the donations would not only solve an economic crisis, but also strengthen morale for thousands of yeshiva students and married scholars who have lost their living stipends, giving them “strength and a spirit of life to continue onward.”
