Rabbi Levinstein Clarifies No Halachic Ban on Voting for Ofer Winter's Party

Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, head of the Eli pre-military academy, has clarified that he did not rule that it is forbidden to vote for Ofer Winter's party due to the inclusion of Yosef Haddad. Recent publications had attributed such a ruling to him, claiming it was because Haddad had previously expressed support for a Palestinian state.

Rabbi Levinstein stated that he did not make such a ruling and does not feel qualified to decide on such significant matters. He emphasized the need to be careful about taking people's words out of context during election periods. Regarding Haddad's past statements, Rabbi Levinstein noted that Haddad has since retracted his support for a Palestinian state and now explicitly supports a Jewish state. "If he has changed his mind, I saw that he retracted his words, in any case today he opposes a Palestinian state," Rabbi Levinstein said. "He also said he is for an Israeli state, he explicitly says he is for a Jewish state."

According to Rabbi Levinstein, if Haddad's current stance is indeed as stated, then the issue does not pose a problem. "If he truly believes that a Palestinian state should not be established here, and he recognizes the State of Israel as a Jewish state, then we have returned to the starting point where there is no problem with him in this regard," he explained.

However, Rabbi Levinstein stressed that he is not ruling on the fundamental halachic question of voting for a list that includes a non-Jewish candidate. He concluded that this returns to a theoretical halachic debate that he, as a junior figure, cannot resolve and that the matter should be brought before the leading halachic authorities of the generation.