Leader of Israeli Settler Movement, Haim Drukman Dies At Age 90

Haim Drukman Dies: One of the pioneers of Israel’s settlement movement, Haim Drukman, was a well-known rabbi. He was 90.

Following Israel’s conquest of those lands in the 1967 Middle East war, Drukman was a crucial player in the religious Zionist movement in Israel and a strong supporter of Jewish colonies in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula.

The Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where he had treatment earlier this month, confirmed his death late on Sunday. It didn’t give a reason why. According to Israeli media, he passed away due to coronavirus complications.

He was a member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, for numerous terms with the predecessor of the current Religious Zionism party, a crucial ally of the prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu. For a very long period, he served as the far-right religious nationalist lawmaker in Israel’s spiritual guide.

Netanyahu wrote on Twitter that “a great light of the love of Israel was extinguished” with Drukman’s death.

Drukman demanded the annexation of the occupied West Bank, home to some 2.5 million Palestinians living next to about 500,000 Jewish settlers under Israeli rule. While most international community views Israeli settlements as illegitimate and a barrier to peace, the Palestinians envision this region, with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, as a future independent state.

Who Was Haim Drukman?

The birthplace of Haim Meir Drukman is Kuty, Poland (today in Ukraine). Milkah was the name of his mother. He fled to Mandate Palestine in 1944 by pretending to be the child of a different family after fleeing the Holocaust with his parents.

After World War II, he was reunited with his true parents. Drukman enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1949 as a member of the Nahal brigade’s Bnei Akiva gar’in (pioneer group). He restored the 1948 Arab-Israeli War-damaged Tirat Tzvi and Sa’ad religious kibbutzim in this role. Following his release, Drukman attended classes at the Petah Tikva Aliyah Institute and the Kfar Haroeh Bnei Akiva Yeshiva.

When Did Haim Drukman Start His Rabbinic Career?

Drukman established Yeshivat Or Etzion, a Bnei Akiva-affiliated mamlachti dati (state religious) high school, in Merkaz Shapira in 1964, once more with the support of his teacher. He founded a hesder yeshiva there in 1977, the biggest in the nation for many years.

He remained the rosh yeshiva (dean) for the rest of his life. He established Ohr MeOfir, an academy for Ethiopian-American high school graduates, there in 1995. He has also served as the director of the Israeli institution for girls-only high schools known as ulpanot since 1996. Keep yourself updated with all the latest news from our website Newswatchlist.com and get all the recent updates.