Overview
- Rabbi Aryeh (Arieh) Yazdi told a Bnei Brak conscription protest that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir was “accursed” and should have his name erased, comments delivered to several hundred attendees on Monday that were recorded and widely circulated.
- Top officials including Defense Minister Yisroel Katz, President Isaac Herzog, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly condemned the language as unacceptable and dangerous to the military and public order.
- The Shas party and senior rabbinic figures issued formal distancing statements, with Rav Moshe Maya saying the phrasing is inconsistent with Torah conduct and Shas calling the remarks contrary to its leadership’s path.
- Yazdi and his family have refused to retract the comment, calling it driven by anguish over a reported case of a charedi soldier punished for a ‘Moshiach’ note while the rabbi described it as a ‘slip of the tongue.’
- The episode deepens an ongoing fight over yeshiva arrests and conscription enforcement, and it could increase pressure on coalition leaders to find a political or enforcement response to calm protests and limit further communal fractures.