Avichai Rontzki

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Avichai Rontzki

Avichai Rontzki (born October 10, 1951 in Haifa , Israel ; died April 1, 2018 in Itamar ) was an Israeli Brigadier General ( Tat-Aluf ) and Chief of the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces from 2006 to 2010 .

Live and act

He came from a non-religious family and attended the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa , which is a private school. In 1969 his military career began in the special unit Shayetet 13 . However, he soon changed the unit and went to the Sajeret Schaked command , with which he took part in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 . His religious retreat began in the 1970s and he studied at the yeshivot Machon Meir and Merkas HaRaw Kook . He also worked as a social worker for street children in Jerusalem . In 1980 he participated in the establishment of religious Talmud studies in Elon Moreh . From 1984 he was involved in the establishment of the Itamar settlement , which is south of Nablus . There he also set up a Talmud school and became the local spokesman and rabbi .

He records the religious knowledge he has acquired in a four-volume document as a halacha guide under the title Hitzim K'yad Gibor for the Israeli armed forces. In military terms, he continued to serve in the army reserve and was promoted to commander of the regional Samaria brigade. When he assumed the post of chief of the military councils in 2006, he strengthened the influence of the rabbis in the military units and increased their number many times over in a few years. He increased their number especially at the battalion level , where only a few rabbis had worked until then. During the training the Jewish Awareness Department was expanded, which increased the religious influence, especially in the combat units of the Israeli armed forces. He organized the establishment of Torah classes in the prisons and took members of the Israeli secret service to Hebron , where they met Rabbi Dov Lior . The main purpose of these actions was to spread the views of the Israeli settlers among the soldiers. He also saw an expression of his solidarity with the settlers in the fact that a settler who was accused of injuring and murdering Palestinians was imprisoned in Rontzki's house. In October 2008, he addressed a letter to the leadership of the Military Council demanding that all Israeli soldiers be familiarized with Jewish roots and values. He also tried to get the Israeli army broadcaster Galei Tzahal to cease broadcasting on the Sabbath and only perform compulsory service, as the instructions for the army provided. He also worked more and more with the soldiers in the field service with the infantry instead of in the HaKirya office .

In October 2011, Rontzki criticized the agreed prisoner exchange that hundreds of Palestinian terrorists were to be released in return for the release of Gilad Shalit . In this context, he said Israeli soldiers (IDF) should stop arresting terrorist suspects and instead kill them in their beds.

He died of cancer in April 2018 at the age of 66.

Operation Cast Lead

In the course of Operation Cast Lead he was on operational missions with soldiers as well as in hospitals with wounded soldiers across the country. He created a pamphlet for the soldiers and the operational commanders on Torah studies for soldiers and officers, which contained the text of a pamphlet by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner . Rontzki also opposed the service of women in combat units, because their use in armored or parachute units is not feasible and is harmful to the combat conditions. He also argued that a religious female officer would come to the military rabbinate to meet the needs of religious women soldiers, which has so far been neglected.

Critical voices

The left-wing human rights group Yesh Din appealed to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to replace Rontzki as head of the rabbis because of his role in Operation Cast Lead . Ophir Pines-Paz called for an immediate investigation into the activities of the Military Council. He voiced his concern, saying that the military council would exceed its authority to offer religious services only. The activities would lead the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces to aggressively view themselves as religious representatives. The military council would bring religion back into the soldiers' homes through the back door, thereby jeopardizing the capabilities of the Israeli armed forces for their tasks.

This criticism turned against the core of Rontzki's efforts to tie in with old religious traditions. He wants to reintroduce the establishment of a cohen meschuach milchama . This person was an ancient Hebrew field priest who stayed with the soldiers on the battlefield during battle and called them to battle with religious fervor. Above all, Aviner's religious theses, which Rontzki had distributed to all other Israeli soldiers during Operation Cast Lead , attracted the attention of many observers. These words by Aviner were an intense reminder of the brochure which Rontzki distributed when he took office in 2006 under the title Your camp should be holy and which came from the fifth book of Moses (23:15).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Rabbi Avichai Rontzki passes away , israelnationalnews.com, April 1, 2018, accessed on April 2, 2018
2. ↑ [1] Ynetnews , accessed June 13, 2018
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Joseph Croitoru, Holy shall be your camp, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 22, 2009
4. ↑ Keeping the Faith. IDF Spokesperson's Unit, August 19, 2007, archived from the original on August 27, 2009 ; accessed on April 21, 2009 . 
5. ↑ Amos Harel: Israel military rabbi under fire for 'brainwashing' soldiers . In: Haaretz , October 23, 2008. Retrieved April 21, 2009. 
6. ↑ Amos Harel: Rabbinate without borders . In: Haaretz . Retrieved April 21, 2009. 
7. ↑ Amos Harel: Chief IDF rabbi: Army rabbinate needs to inculcate Jewish values . In: Haaretz . Retrieved April 21, 2009. 
8. ^ ^{A b} Amos Harel: Labor MK demands IDF be investigated for alleged proselytizing . In: Haaretz . Retrieved April 21, 2009. 
9. ↑ Israeli Soldiers Should Kill Terrorists 'In Their Beds' Following Shalit Deal, Former IDF Rabbi Says , haaretz.com, October 17, 2011, accessed April 2, 2018.
10. ^ Gil Ronen: IDF's Chief Rabbi Opposes Women in Combat Units . In: Israel National News . Retrieved April 21, 2009. 
11. ↑ Harel, Amos (2009-01-26). "IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058758.html . Retrieved April 21, 2009