Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Teitelbaum, hy"d: A bad decision

A Guest Post by Rafi G.
(originally posted on LII)


Israel made a bad decision. One of the victims of the terrorism in the Chabad House of Mumbai was Reb Leibish Teitelbaum. A Satmar Hassid and son in law of the Toldos Avraham Yitzchak rebbe. An avowed anti-zionist. He, like most others in his group, had renounced his Israeli citizenship a long time ago.

He died in India as a result of terror. It had nothing to do with Israel. Israel was not involved in any way, other than flying the bodies back.

There was a big debate raging - The Israel envoy insisted on all the coffins being draped in the Israeli flag, and being part of the ceremony. After all, "we declared them victims of terror". On the other hand, the family did not want Teitelbaum's coffin to be draped in the flag.

From the picture above you can see that they insisted on it, and did not listen to the wishes of the family.

I think that was a bad decision. Teitelbaum's worldview rejected the State of Israel. Just because Israel gave his body a free flight, should not give them the right to hijack a person's wishes. He clearly would have rejected such a ceremony, and his family clearly said so. Israel had no right to do what was done.

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Buy DB's book. (please)

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