Rabbi Tamir Granot’s son, Capt. Amitay Zvi Granot, was killed shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attack in an incident on the Lebanon border while fighting Hezbollah.
The former Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and Shas spiritual leader, Yitzhak Yosef, sharply criticized the head of Yeshivat Orot Shaul in southern Tel Aviv, Rabbi Tamir Granot, on Sunday during a Kol Hai radio broadcast, after Granot advocated for the enlistment of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector into the IDF.
Granot’s son, Capt. Amitay Zvi Granot, was killed shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attack in an incident on the Lebanon border while fighting Hezbollah. Yosef claimed that Rabbi Granot was among several yeshiva heads who attacked him on television.
“Aren’t you afraid of dishonoring Torah scholars?” Yosef asked him.
Yosef continued, alluding to Granot, “I think there are some of them that, if they come to join the minyan, we won’t accept them. They are heretics. Not all of them.”
Granot had previously decried Yosef while he was chief rabbi, after Yosef threatened to leave Israel if the authorities forced haredi yeshiva students to enlist.
Haredim protest against the IDF draft outside Tel Hashomer recruitment base, April 28. 2025. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
“You need to ask forgiveness from my wife, from her tears, and go up to Mount Herzl and ask forgiveness from Amitay, a Yeshiva student and combat soldier, and from all the righteous, holy, and pure Torah scholars who chose to fight, and also from those who are not Torah scholars but gave their lives,” Granot said at the time.
“To leave for abroad so as not to fight a war of commandment, a war that is a national life-threatening situation?! Honorable rabbi, are we in Russia? Is the army the Tsar’s army?” Ynet quoted him as saying.
Debate over ethical issues welcome, insults, degradation forbidden
Chairman of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization, Rabbi David Stav, said in response to the exchange that while debate over ethical issues is welcome, it is “forbidden to insult and degrade.
“Torah discourse should be based on humility, mutual respect, and responsibility to the word of God, not on personal attacks. Is anyone who disagrees with you no longer a rabbi? No one can claim a monopoly on the Torah and halacha,” he continued, adding that the Torah was given to all of Israel and anyone who is dedicated to it deserves respect and constructive discourse despite disagreement.
Rabbi Stav continued, according to Ynet, “When a rabbi in Israel chooses a language of insults and degradation toward another Torah scholar, and especially toward a person who is also a bereaved father, it causes a severe desecration of God’s name that harms the honor of the Torah itself.”