Chabad distances itself from rabbi who invoked din rodef over Arab parties

The Chabad Hasidic movement publicly separated itself on Thursday from Rabbi Gedalia Axelrod, one of its members, after he issued a religious ruling about Jewish politicians willing to form a government with Arab-led parties. The Times of Israel reported that Axelrod, who formerly headed the Haifa Rabbinical Court, ruled earlier in the week that leaders of Jewish parties backing a coalition with the Joint List and Ra'am fall under din rodef, a principle in Jewish law that allows lethal force to stop a person seen as posing a grave danger.

Haaretz described Axelrod as one of the movement's prominent rabbis in Israel and said his halakhic ruling, meaning a ruling under Jewish religious law, relied on a doctrine that would allow deadly force to be used on heads of Jewish parties that work together with Arab ones. According to The Times of Israel, several groups and organisations asked the Israel Police and the Shin Bet to investigate the rabbi for incitement, and Michal Rozen, a Member of Knesset (MK) for The Democrats party, made the same call.

What din rodef means and why it carries weight

Din rodef, literally the "law of the pursuer", is a concept from traditional Jewish law. In its classical form it addresses a situation in which one person is pursuing another with intent to kill, and it permits a bystander to stop the pursuer, with lethal force if no lesser means will do. Its use against political figures is what makes it explosive in Israel.

Yigal Amir, who killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, cited the same concept as his justification, The Times of Israel noted. Because of that history, any public application of din rodef to an elected politician is widely treated in Israel as a potential call to violence rather than an abstract legal opinion, which is why the reaction to Axelrod's ruling centred on incitement.

Who the parties named in the ruling are

The Joint List and Ra'am, also known in English as the United Arab List, are political parties that draw their support mainly from Arab citizens of Israel and are represented in the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Israeli governments are formed by coalitions, since no single party usually wins a majority on its own, and whether Jewish-led parties should rely on Arab-led parties to reach a majority is a recurring and divisive question in Israeli politics. Axelrod's ruling, as reported, targeted the leaders of Jewish parties who support such an arrangement.

Chabad's response

Chabad-Lubavitch is a worldwide Hasidic movement known for its outreach to Jews, with a large network of emissaries in Israel and abroad. According to The Times of Israel, a Chabad spokesman said in a statement carried by Hebrew-language media that the movement's formal position on matters of Jewish law is set by one body alone, its rabbinical court. In the spokesman's words, that position is "determined only by the Chabad Rabbinical Court." The excerpts available to us end before the spokesman's full remarks about Axelrod himself.

Who Axelrod is

The reports identify Axelrod as a former head of the rabbinical court in Haifa, a city in northern Israel. Rabbinical courts in Israel are part of the state system and handle matters of Jewish personal status. Haaretz calls him a leading Chabad rabbi; The Times of Israel describes him as a member of the movement.

How the two reports differ

The two outlets frame the ruling with different degrees of certainty. Haaretz states that the rabbi legitimised killing such politicians and that his ruling permits lethal force against them. The Times of Israel uses more cautious language, writing that he seemed to be suggesting that Jewish politicians who work with Arab-led parties be killed, while also reporting that his ruling placed those leaders under din rodef. We have not seen the text of the ruling itself.

What the reports do not say

• Neither report says whether the police or the Shin Bet have opened an investigation in response to the complaints.
• No response from Axelrod to the criticism or to Chabad's statement has been reported.
• The reports do not name any specific politician the ruling was aimed at, or say where or how the ruling was published.
• The full text of Chabad's statement, including what it said about Axelrod directly, is not in the material available to us.