‘THE SIMPLE JEW’: THE ‘PRICE TAG’ PHENOMENON, VIGILANTISM, AND RABBI YITZCHAK GINSBURGH’S POLITICAL KABBALAH

Abstract

This paper explores the Kabbalistic theosophy of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and allegations of links between his yeshiva and violent political activism and vigilantism. Ginsburgh is head of the yeshiva Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) in Samaria/the northern West Bank. His students and colleagues have been accused by the authorities of violence and vandalism against Arabs in the context of ‘price tag’ actions and vigilante attacks, while publications by Ginsburgh and his yeshiva colleagues such as Barukh HaGever (Barukh the Man/Blessed is the Man) and Torat HaMelekh (The King’s Torah) have been accused of inciting racist violence. This paper sketches the yeshiva’s history in the public spotlight and describes the esoteric, Kabbalistic framework behind Ginsburgh’s politics, focusing on his political readings of Zoharic Kabbalah and teachings about the mystical value of spontaneous revenge attacks by ‘the simple Jew’, who acts upon his feelings of righteous indignation without prior reflection. The conclusion explores and attempts to delimit the explanatory power of such mystical teachings in light of the sociological characteristics of the Hilltop Youth most often implicated as price tag ‘operatives’ and existing scholarly models of vigilantism. It also points to aspects of the mystical teachings with potential for special potency in this context. Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh (1944-) is a Chabad rabbi and head of the Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, near the major Palestinian population centre of Nablus (biblical Shechem). The yeshiva occupies an unusual discursive space – neither mainstream religious Zionist (though some of its teaching staff were educated in this tradition) nor formally affiliated with the Hasidic movement, despite Ginsburgh’s own affiliation with Chabad and despite his teachings being steeped in its Kabbalistic inheritance. Od Yosef Chai is no stranger to negative publicity: its rabbis have drawn flak from all quarters for allegedly inciting racist and/or vigilante violence. The police and Shin Bet claim yeshiva students have directly participated in such violence and have imposed both administrative detentions and travel bans, backed by unpublished confidential intelligence. This paper presents an analysis of the political Kabbalah of the yeshiva’s president and spiritual father (Ginsburgh) and explores the nature of its connections to a brand of settler activism led by Hilltop Youth that has polarized the Israeli public: the so-called ‘price tag’ acts. It commences by situating price tagging in the context of extant studies of settler vigilantism. It then presents a historical overview of public controversies around the yeshiva and the claimed links with price tagging specifically and vigilante violence * PhD Candidate in Jewish Society and Culture, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia. Email: tessa.satherley@unimelb.edu.au I wish to thank Dr Dvir Abramovich and Dr Ziva Shavitsky for their helpful feedback during the early stages of the research, and Dr Alick Isaacs for fruitful discussions. I especially thank Dr Eliezer Shore for careful reading and insightful criticism of an earlier version of the manuscript. MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES 58 generally. This is followed by text-based analysis of the Kabbalistic framework used by Ginsburgh to articulate his teachings on Gentile inferiority, the illegitimacy of Gentile presence in Eretz Yisrael,1 and the positive nature of revenge – especially the virtue of hotblooded revenge by ‘the simple Jew’ who is not overburdened by Halakhic reflection. By exploring the Kabbalistic underpinnings of Ginsburgh’s political and Halakhic opinions, the analysis hopes to build on the excellent work by Don Seeman2 and Motti Inbari3 on this subject. The conclusion critiques and delimits the usefulness of the textual-analytic approach for understanding price tagging, but simultaneously identifies concerning synergies between Ginsburgh’s political Kabbalah (especially his spiritualization of impulsive revenge), the sociological profile of price taggers, and extant patterns of vigilantism. Price Tagging, Vigilantism, and the Hilltop Youth In the years since the 10-month settlement construction freeze announced in late 2009, price tag attacks have become a signature tactic of anti-bourgeois, counter-cultural fringes of settler youth opposed to territorial concessions. Activists try to deter the Israeli government from construction freezes in the settlements and/or demolitions of unauthorized outposts by retaliating with vandalism and sometimes violence against various targets: most often Palestinians or their property, but also the homes of Jewish public figures who advocate or implement such policies, and even Israel Defence Force (IDF) facilities. Though rare, the latter has raised exceptional ire in Israel. Even mainstream settler leaders have been threatened, if they are viewed as complicit in policies to ‘uproot’ Jews from Eretz Yisrael (e.g., by enforcing the construction freeze locally). The graffiti tag mechir (ריחמ גת), ‘price tag’, is commonly left as a signature and warning at vandalized sites, to indicate that the act is the price to be paid for the government’s transgressions; hence the appellation. Demographically and organizationally, price taggers stand on ‘the fringe of the fringe’ of the settler world. Estimates suggest they number in the mere hundreds. The coordination (if any) of attacks is informal and spontaneous. Passionate, angry teenagers with mobile phones can quickly and quietly organize a response to perceived provocations; there need not be a central architect, and no operational ‘hub’ has been persuasively identified – no ‘Price Tag Regional Council’, as remarked sarcastically by one right-wing 1 The relationship between Ginsburgh’s ideas and mainstream Hasidism is a fascinating question in its own right. However, a detailed treatment is beyond the scope of the present paper. The genealogy of Ginsburgh’s ideas is explored at more length in other work under preparation. 2 Don Seeman, ‘Violence, Ethics, and Divine Honor in Modern Jewish Thought’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73:4 (2005): 1015-1048. The paper presents an analysis of Ginsburgh’s use of the concepts of ‘divine honour’ and ‘sanctification of the divine name’ in justifying the 1994 massacre in Hebron (and compares their interpretation with those of Rabbi Abraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook and Emmanual Levinas). 3 Motti Inbari, Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple?, trans. Shaul Vardi (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2009). The chapter on Ginsburgh focuses on his teachings calling for restoration of the Sanhedrin and building of the Third Temple. It also includes discussion of Ginsburgh’s thought on the Halakhic status of zealotry in contemporary times. In contrast to both Seeman and Inbari, the textual analysis in this article grounds Ginsburgh’s permissive approach to anti-Arab violence in an analysis of his elaborate Kabbalistic theosophy, which is articulated through Zoharic and Lurianic concepts. ‘THE SIMPLE JEW’ (TESSA SATHERLEY) 59 activist4 – although the researches of the security agencies have concentrated heavily on Samarian Hilltop Youth and Od Yosef Chai. Despite the fringe status of the phenomenon, it has sparked firestorms in both the Israeli and Palestinian media arenas; the price taggers’ impact on Israeli-Palestinian intercommunal relations and public discourse has been disproportionate to their demographic and ideological marginality. They have been lambasted by the mainstream settler rabbinical and lay leadership5 – though the condemnations flow more freely when the price taggers target fellow Jews6 – not least because of concern that the price taggers’ alienation of mainstream Israelis threatens public support for settlers per se, as transpired after Rabin’s assassination by the religious Zionist law student Yigal Amir.7 An attack on an IDF base in 2011 stunned the nation, and the Hilltop Youth behind it were publically shamed by defence minister Ehud Barak in the harshest language Israeli discourse could offer: ‘there is no doubt that we’re talking about terrorists’.8 Though the price tag slogan and targeting of the IDF are novel features, there is substantial continuity between price tagging as a mode of vigilante-style intimidation and prior vigilante acts in a similar vein, dating to periods well before such ‘obvious’ political triggers as the Gaza Disengagement and 2009 building freeze.9 Likewise, it is difficult to draw a clean line between, on the one hand, price tag attacks against Arabs as a ‘performance’ of violence whose intended ‘audience’ is nominally the Jewish authorities and, on the other, historical patterns of vigilante revenge attacks and collective punishment by settlers.10 4 Itamar Ben-Gvir, quoted by Maayana Miskin, ‘Attorney: Price Tag “Terror” Label a Joke’, Arutz Sheva, May 26, 2013. Ben-Gvir is a right-wing activist, parliamentary consultant, and public relations expert affiliated with the Kahanist movement. He is respected as a highly professional and effective spin doctor. See, e.g., Amichai Atali, ‘Omedim LiYeminam: Kach Nitzach HaYamin BeParshat Perlman’ [Standing by their right hand: Thus the Right prevailed in the Perlman episode], Maariv, August 17, 2010. 5 E.g., ‘Yesha Leadership Condemns Price Tag Extremists’, The Yeshiva World, June 25, 2012; Ali Waked, ‘Rabbis Visit Torched Mosque, Condemn Attack’, Yedioth Achronoth, October 5, 2010; ‘[Yesha Council Head] Danny Dayan Condemns “Price Tag” Attack’, Yedioth Achronoth, September 7, 2011; Kobi Nachshoni, ‘HaRav Ronsky Al Tag Mechir: BeDerech Le-“Milchemet Achim”’ [Rabbi Ronsky on Price Tag: On the way to ‘fraternal war’], Yedioth Achronoth, December 13, 2011. In the same article, published shortly after an attack on IDF representatives by a