Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo, also
Sholom Ber Wolpe, (born 1948) is a prominent religious author and political activist in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
and a
Chabad-LubavitchChabad-Lubavitch is a Hasidic movement in Orthodox Judaism. One of the world's largest Hasidic movements, it is based in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York...
rabbi.
He has written more than forty books in Hebrew, some of which are on halachic topics, some which deal with the position of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Lubavitcher Rebbe, as the
Jewish messiahMessiah Messiah Messiah is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed with the holy anointing oil as described in Exodus 30:22-25...
, some on the Lubavitcher Rebbe's position opposing religious Zionism.
He has become associated in recent years with right-wing political causes, and has set up a campaign group -
SOS Israel - an organization that runs press and billboard campaigns promoting the belief that surrender of parts of the
Land of IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
is prohibited by halacha, and the idea of "
Greater IsraelGreater Israel is a controversial expression with several different Biblical and political meanings over time.Currently, the most common definition of the land encompassed by the term is the territory of the State of Israel together with the Palestinian territories...
".
Chabad messianism
Rabbi Wolpo is one of the leaders of the group of Chabad Chasidim believing that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi
Menachem Mendel SchneersonMenachem Mendel Schneerson , known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe amongst his hasidim, was a prominent hasidic rabbi who was the seventh and last Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement...
, is the
messiahMessiah Messiah Messiah is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed with the holy anointing oil as described in Exodus 30:22-25...
. He was one of the first to openly describe Rabbi Schneerson as the Messiah. In 1984 he wrote a book proclaiming the Rebbe as Moshiach. However, after a public address by Rabbi Schneerson in which he said that “such a book can cause hundreds of Jews to stop learning Chassidus, and oppose the Baal Shem Tov and his teachings," he did not publish the book. The book was later published in 1991 with Rabbi Schneerson's blessings..
In an interview with Israeli
Channel 2Channel 2 is an Israeli commercial television channel that started broadcasting in November 4, 1993 under the Second Israeli Broadcasting Authority. It has two current concessionaires: Keshet and Reshet, who divide the week schedule between them...
evening news in March 1994, he told an interviewer that Rabbi Schneerson's place as the Messiah and the fact of his "eternal life" was "as secure as the rising of the sun in the morning."
He wrote a number of books of
critiqueThe term critique derives from the Greek term kritikē , meaning " discerning", that is, discerning the value of persons or things...
on the writings of Rabbi
Elazar ShachRabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach , was a leading Eastern European-born and educated Haredi rabbi who settled and lived in modern Israel.He was the rosh yeshiva of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak the pre-eminent yeshiva of Lithuanian...
, leader of Lithuanian Haredim - a prominent opponent of the
ChabadChabad is an acronym for Chochmah, Binah, and Da'at, the three levels of Sefirot related to cognition according to the Kabbalah....
-Lubavitch movement and of Rabbi Schneerson himself - under the title
Yedaber Shalom.
Politics
In 1979, on the instructions of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he published his first book
Da'at Torah a polemic against returning lands captured by Israel. He was active in the protests that surrounded the forced eviction of
YamitYamit was an Israeli settlement. It was home to about 2,500 people in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula that was established during Israel's occupation of the peninsula from the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, until that part of the Sinai was handed over to Egypt in 1982 as part of the terms...
as per the Rebbe's instructions to him, and in 1982 published the book
Shalom, Shalom, Ve'ain Shalom that argued that peace with Arabs was impossible, and no discussions concerning concessions may be held.
Gaza disengagement
He was active in the protest movement in 2005 that fought the disengagement from Gaza. Following the failure of that campaign he organized a rabbinical conference entitled "We shall never forget and we shall never forgive". After the Second Lebanon War Wolpo organized a publicity campaign with the slogan
"We Told You So" that distributed over a million brochures. He was also responsible for a poster campaign promising that those responsible for Israel's actions during the war would be "punished from heaven".
In January 2006 he wrote a letter to Olmert warning him that if he ever gave up even "an tiny parcel" of the
Land of IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
he would suffer from a bitter fate. The letter noted that Rabbi Schneerson had warned that he would personally fight with all his powers against any Prime Minister who gave up Israeli territory or backpedaled over settlements. He told the press that
Ariel Sharon' is an Israeli general and statesman, former Israeli Prime Minister...
had brought about a "new holocaust" with the Gaza disengagement, and that he had gladly "collaborated with the Nazis of today." He ruled that assisting in the evacuation of the Gaza settlement was as bad as violating the Jewish Sabbath. He called for Olmert to be "brought to trial and punished."
Following the disengagement he published a book entitled "Between Light and Dark" in which he shows that Rabbi Schneerson was right about rejecting Zionism and the claim of religious zionists that the founding of the State is the "beginning of the redemption".
SOS Israel
He is the founder of the organization Ha'Matteh L'Hatzolat Ha'Am V'Ha'Aretz -
SOS Israel - a grassroots action group that unites a broad spectrum of the religious right in Israel behind extensive poster campaigns and mass protests against giving parts of the Holy Land away to Israel's enemies.
Another campaign run by his organization under the slogan
"There is Judgment and there is a Judge" (referring to G-d), has generated considerable controversy in the Israeli press in March 2007. One radio host, Natan Zahavi, denounced Wolpo on the radio in obscene terms and the Israeli Broadcasting Authority is currently investigating.
He has recently released a film under the
SOS Israel name entitled
"there is judgement and there is a judge" which shows how all the political leaders that had a hand in the Gaza disengagement have suffered as a result, for example Sharon suffered a stroke; former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Police Chief Moshe Karadi were forced to resign; President Moshe Katsav, former Minister Chaim Ramon and MK Tzachi Hanegbi have been involved in criminal affairs; and Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Administration, had to leave his kibbutz after being accused of collaborating in driving settlers out of their homes. The film maintains that this is God's retribution. The film includes footage of Rabbi Schneerson declaring that making peace with the Arabs will lead to disaster and telling Katzav that "it would lead to the opposite of peace.
MaarivMaariv is a Hebrew language daily tabloid published in Israel. It is second in sales after the Yedioth Ahronoth tabloid but third in readership after Israel HaYom as well...
reports that two million copies of the film are to be distributed, and the film is to be made available for download online.
Running for Knesset
Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo,and
Baruch MarzelBaruch Marzel is an Israeli politician. Marzel, an American-born Orthodox Jew, lives in the Jewish community of Hebron in Tel Rumeida with his wife and nine children. He is the leader of the Religious Zionism-orientated Jewish National Front party...
’s “Jewish National Front" party will run together as part of "Our Land of Israel" party in the coming elections.
Wolpe and Marzel appeared together at a press conference on Monday morning in Jerusalem to make the announcement. Rabbi Wolpe said that he never expected to enter politics, but that the situation had become too grave for him to merely stand by and watch. Israel has actually become a terror-supporting country, he said, in that “we give money to terrorists, release terrorists, etc.”
Textbooks
In a halachic ruling, Wolpo ruled that it was forbidden to teach children from Israeli education ministry approved textbooks that show maps of Israel with
Green Line-Geographic demarcations:*Green Line , a cease fire line between the Republic of South Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus*Green Line, a name for the Gothic Line of "Linea Gotica", a German defensive line in Italy during World War II, renamed the "Green Line" in June 1944*Green Line,...
marked, as this was an attack on
West BankThe West Bank is a landlocked territory and is the eastern part of the Palestinian territories; on the west bank of the River Jordan in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel, which maintains the security of this area. To the east,...
settlers. He told
MaarivMaariv is a Hebrew language daily tabloid published in Israel. It is second in sales after the Yedioth Ahronoth tabloid but third in readership after Israel HaYom as well...
that Israeli education minister
Yuli TamirYael "Yuli" Tamir is an Israeli academic, politician and former Minister of Immigrant Absorption and former Minister of Education and represents the Labor Party in the Knesset.-Biography:...
should "recall what happened to Ariel Sharon" before she attacked the settlement movement.
Controversial slogan
In February 2007, Wolpo appealed a decision that a political campaign under the slogan
"if anyone comes to remove me from my home, I will chop off their hands" amounted to incitement to violence, since retired Supreme Court Justice Mishael Cheshin vowed to defend the Supreme Court, which he said was dear to him, with all his strength, saying, "If someone raises a hand against my house, I will cut it off," and he wasn't accused of anything. The slogan was meant to protest the removal of Jewish settlers from their West Bank homes.
Hananel Dayan
Wolpo arranged an elaborate award ceremony for Sergeant Hananel Dayan (son of
Yosef DayanYosef Dayan was born in 1945 in Mexico to Sephardic Jewish parents from Aleppo, Syria. The Dayan family traces its lineage directly to the Exilarchs of the ancient Near East....
), who was disciplined for refusing to shake the hand of Israeli Chief of Staff
Dan Halutz' is an Israeli Air Force Lt. General and former Israeli Air Force commander. Halutz was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces on June 1, 2005. On January 17 2007 he announced his resignation. He has a degree in economics...
. The soldier was protesting the forced eviction of his grandparents from their Gaza home in 2005.
Rabbi David Druckman
In 2006 Wolpo defended Rabbi David Drukman, chief rabbi of Kiryat Motzkin, over charges that he had abused his position as a state employee to incite violence. Wolpo said: "Rabbi Drukman will go down in history as someone who stood up to a vile government fearlessly."
Second Lebanon War
During the 2006 Second Lebanon War he told the local Kiryat Gat weekly that "Olmert has declared war against G-d and against his
TorahThe term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts...
" and that he should be brought to justice. He added that the war should continue "until the enemy has been totally eradicated."
Anti-Zionism
In 2006 offered a free copy of one of his book "From Light to Darkness" to anyone that pledged to refrain from celebrating Independence Day.
In 2007, he told a conference in Jerusalem that "the remedy for the disengagement is to understand that the State of Israel is a terrible thing. We should not bless or praise the state that was founded by criminals and heretics like Herzl."
Olmert hanging comments
In December 2007, Wolpo stated that his followers will
secedeSecession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity.-Secession theory:...
from Israel if the Israeli government withdraws from
Judea and SamariaJudea and Samaria Area is the official Israeli term roughly corresponding to the territory usually known outside Israel as the West Bank. Jordan occupied the territory and annexed it in 1950...
It is unclear which part of Israel Wolpo and his followers would claim, or how they would achieve autonomous status.
Wolpo, addressing a demonstration against the Olmert government's peace moves with the Palestinian Authority, said the prime minister, Vice Premier Chaim Ramon, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak would be "hung from the gallows" were Israel run properly.
"The terrible traitor, Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis," Wolpo said in the speech.
Yoel Hasson, a lawmaker with Olmert's Kadima party, said he would ask Israel's attorney general to take legal steps against Wolpo. The U.S.-based Orthodox Union issued a statement condemning the remarks.
Rabbi Wolpo said that the comments he made at the conference were twisted and taken out of context. In calling for the execution of state leaders by legal means, he was not calling for vigilante violence, he explained, but rather calling on the police to implement the law. Rabbi Wolpo wrote that he believes violence against a fellow Jew is unacceptable, but that law enforcement has the right and responsibility to enforce the law.
One of Israel's laws prohibits providing assistance to Nazis, he explained, and Muslim terrorist groups are the Nazis of our day. If the government provides terrorists with aid, he reasoned, then the government has violated the law and its members must suffer the consequences, which can include the death penalty.
Rabbi Wolpo emphasized that he was calling for any such punishments to be carried out in a legal manner.