Bat Yam Rabbi Rips Supreme Court, Says It Must Not Order Evacuations
Rabbi David Hai HaKohen, head of the Bat Yam yeshiva and a member of the Torah HaAretz HaTova rabbinic group, issued a sweeping attack on Israel’s legal system and the High Court of Justice. He said the court has gone beyond its authority by intervening in security, settlement and state identity issues, and warned that such conduct damages public trust in the judiciary.
The rabbi stressed that his criticism was not aimed at the idea of courts in general, but at the current conduct of High Court judges and legal advisers. In his view, the court should reflect the spirit of the people, and once its rulings conflict with what he called the Jewish and national values of the state, it loses the legitimacy to rule on matters tied to Eretz Israel and settlement. He said, “Once that clashes with our hold on the Land of Israel, the court has no authority to harm, this is a Jewish state.”
HaKohen also condemned several High Court rulings on religion and state, including issues such as bringing chametz into hospitals during Passover and the sale of pork. He argued that individual rights cannot come at the expense of the country’s Jewish character. Turning to the criminal case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said forcing a wartime prime minister to appear as a witness is unreasonable and harms the running of the state and its security.
He took an especially hard line on settlement evacuations, saying that if the High Court orders a settlement to be dismantled, people should not obey. He also criticized the attorney general and the former military advocate general, accusing them of harming IDF soldiers and the security establishment. In addition, he objected to integrating women into armored units, saying mixed long-term stays inside tanks violate modesty and his halakhic worldview, and that women who serve should do so only in separate women’s companies. He concluded that he does not want to abolish the judicial system, but to fix it, because, in his words, the current situation is eroding trust in the courts and damaging a “sacred” institution.
