Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva
Hardline religious Zionist yeshiva in Yitzhar settlement, known for controversial teachings and links to settler extremism
- Not to be confused with Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva College of Rabbinical Studies, a Sephardi synagogue and yeshiva in Hendon, London NW4.
| Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Yeshiva |
| Founder(s) | Romem Aldubi; Yitzchak Ginsburgh (co-founder per Forward) |
| Headquarters | Yitzhar, West Bank (formerly Joseph's Tomb, Nablus) |
| Location | West Bank |
| Key people | Yitzchak Ginsburgh (spiritual leader and president) Yitzhak Shapira (former head) Yosef Elitzur |
| Website | odyosefchai.org |
Od Yosef Chai (Hebrew: עוד יוסף חי, "Joseph still lives") is a hardline religious Zionist yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, led by the Chabad-affiliated kabbalist Yitzchak Ginsburgh.[1][2] The Forward describes it as "a West Bank seminary that has produced successive cohorts of radical students implicated in violence against Palestinians".[2]
It is known for radical interpretations of Jewish law, above all Torat HaMelech (2009), and for associations with settler violence, including "price tag" attacks linked to the Hilltop Youth.[3]
History
The yeshiva's own profile says it was founded in 1982 (5742) by Romem Aldubi and associates at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus (Shechem);[1] the Forward states that Ginsburgh "helped found" it in 1983.[2]
In May 1989 about 30 settlers, reported as students of the yeshiva, raided the village of Kifl Haris and a 13-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead. Ginsburgh defended them, telling Israel Radio "Jewish blood and the blood of a goy (non-Jew) are not the same thing".[4][2]
The yeshiva operated at Joseph's Tomb until the IDF withdrew from the site in October 2000 during the Second Intifada. It then moved to Yitzhar, where it expanded to include a high school, yeshiva gedolah, kollel and publishing activities.[1][5] Biale and his co-authors write that Ginsburgh established the yeshiva in Nablus "at the site believed by religious Jews and Muslims to be the grave of the biblical Joseph", and that it moved to "the radical settlement of Yitzhar after Joseph's Tomb was seized by Palestinians during the Second Intifada in 2001"; they date the move to 2001 rather than 2000. In their account, Ginsburgh has had "a major influence" on the hilltop youth "in part through the Od Yosef Hai yeshivah".[6] The Lubavitch.com directory separately lists a Chabad house in Yitzhar.[7]
Leadership
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, an American-born rabbi who regards himself as part of Chabad-Lubavitch, is spiritual leader and president. He has headed or influenced the institution since the late 1980s.[5][2]
Other key figures include Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, who served as heads and wrote Torat HaMelech.[8]
Teachings and controversies
The yeshiva combines Hasidic philosophy, Kabbalah and hardline religious Zionism. Critics accuse it of fostering Jewish supremacism by distinguishing between Jewish and non-Jewish souls and by permitting violence in some contexts.[5][2]
Baruch HaGever
In 1994 Ginsburgh wrote Baruch HaGever, an essay on Baruch Goldstein's Hebron massacre. It includes the line "the best goy is a dead one".[2] Biale and his co-authors describe Barukh ha-Gever as "justifying Baruch Goldstein's massacre of twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron on the holiday of Purim in 1994", and write that two of Ginsburgh's disciples took the argument further in Torat ha-Melekh.[6] See Yitzchak Ginsburgh#Baruch HaGever (1994).
Torat HaMelech (2009)
In 2009 Shapira and Elitzur published Torat HaMelech (The King's Torah). Haaretz summarised it as arguing "there are times when Jews are allowed to kill gentiles who pose no physical threat of violence", and noted that the book was "endorsed by leading Chabad Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg and Kiryat Arba Rabbi Dov Lior".[9] The Forward says it "justifies the killing of non-Jews, including infants, if there is reason to believe they will grow up to harm Jews".[2][8] It argued that the prohibition on murder applies primarily to Jews and outlined scenarios where killing non-Jews, including civilians and children, could be permissible if they pose a threat.[8][3]
The book drew widespread condemnation, led to investigations for incitement, and prompted funding cuts from Israeli ministries.[5]
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh has faced multiple detentions and accusations of incitement, including for statements describing Arabs as a "cancer" and endorsing related texts.[2]
Security services raided the yeshiva in 2010.[2] Shapira and Elitzur were detained and questioned, and the rabbis who endorsed the book were also investigated; their arrests in 2011 "led to violent protests".[10] In May 2012 Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein closed the case. He cited "insufficient evidence to put the authors on trial for incitement to racism or incitement to violence", and added that his decision was "not in any way an expression of acceptance" of statements he called "deserving of condemnation and denunciation".[10][11][12]
State action
- Funding. In 2011 the Education Ministry stopped funding after accepting a Shin Bet assessment that "leading teachers" at the yeshiva "foster violence by their students against the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinians". The same report records ministry allocations of about $221,000 in 2007 and $293,000 in 2010.[2]
- Military seizure, 2014–15. Settlers destroyed an IDF post near Yitzhar in April 2014. A Border Police company then took over the building, and classes were "suspended indefinitely". The IDF justified this on "security needs to prevent violence and vandalism targeting security personnel and the adjacent villages originating from the yeshiva".[13] Prime Minister Netanyahu called the attackers "a bunch of barbarians".[14] In June 2014 Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon extended the seizure, saying it had "a positive and restraining influence".[15] Forces withdrew in June 2015.[16] The yeshiva called the seizure "a desecration of a holy place".[13]
- 2015 restraining orders. After the Duma arson attack, the Shin Bet and police issued restraining orders against two Od Yosef Chai students.[17]
Sanctions
On 15 October 2024 the United Kingdom government designated Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva under the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020, placing it under an asset freeze (UK Sanctions List reference GHR0138).[18][19] The UK statement of reasons says the yeshiva "is and/or has been facilitating, inciting or providing support for activity which amounts to a serious abuse of the right of individuals not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". The listing gives its address as "Yitzhar settlement, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories".[18][19] Announcing the measures, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Foreign Secretary David Lammy described it as "a religious school embedded in the Yitzhar settlement known to promote violence against non-Jewish people".[20] The same announcement sanctioned three outposts (Tirzah Valley Farm, Meitarim and Shuvi Eretz) and three other organisations: Hashomer Yosh, Torat Lechima and Amana.[20] A director disqualification sanction was added to the designation on 9 April 2025.[19][21]
Connections to Hilltop Youth and price tag attacks
Od Yosef Chai is widely regarded as an ideological incubator for the Hilltop Youth. This radical settler milieu is known for unauthorised outposts and "price tag" attacks, meaning retaliatory violence against Palestinians and Israeli forces, including arson, vandalism, and killings.[3][22] In 2014 Haaretz cited security officials who blamed vengeance attacks on about 100 radical activists in Yitzhar "who based their actions on Ginsburgh's teachings".[2] Students and alumni have been implicated in such attacks. Israeli security services have linked the yeshiva's teachings to encouragement of violence, leading to raids, funding suspensions, and temporary seizures.[3][5] Meir Ettinger, Kahane's grandson and alleged leader of "The Revolt", is described as "a prize student of Ginsburgh".[2] In a 2015 doctoral study, Tessa Satherley calls her survey "the first comprehensive exploration of linkages between Od Yosef Chai and vigilante violence". She concludes that the yeshiva and Ginsburgh "have a substantial influence in shaping the worldview of some Hilltop Youth, although the youths do not necessarily accept them as halakhic authorities".[23] She describes Od Yosef Chai and Ginsburgh's "brand of Hasidism" as one of two streams, alongside Kahane's followers, that filled the void left when the youth rejected mainstream religious-Zionist rabbis.[24] In late 2011 the Shin Bet recommended cutting the yeshiva's state funding on the grounds that "Prominent rabbis in the yeshiva support and/or are involved in this violent activity". She adds that the yeshiva "continues to operate (without the yeshiva ketanah), thanks to private donors".[25]
Satherley (2015, pp. 180–83) describes the Hilltop Youth as seeing themselves as heirs of Gush Emunim, with no formal organisation, and their mentors as coming from two streams, Od Yosef Chai and the Kahanists.[24]
Links to Chabad
Od Yosef Chai is not formally part of the Chabad-Lubavitch network. Still, Ginsburgh studied in Chabad institutions, developed a relationship with and studied with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, lived in Kfar Chabad, and draws on Chassidut and Kabbalah in his teaching. The Forward reports that since 2011 he has held an annual 19 Kislev event "in cooperation with the Chabad Hasidic sect". Chabad students have attended classes there.[2][5] Satherley notes that "although Ginsburgh is affiliated with Chabad, Od Yosef Chai is not". She writes that the yeshiva is "neither mainstream religious Zionist… nor formally affiliated with the Hasidic movement, despite Ginsburgh's own affiliation with Chabad and despite his teachings being steeped in its Kabbalistic inheritance".[26]
See also
- Yitzchak Ginsburgh
- The King's Torah
- Hilltop Youth
- Price tag attack policy
- Chabad-Lubavitch
- Jewish extremism in Israel
External links
- Official website (primary source)
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Yeshivat Od Yosef Chai, JGive (yeshiva's own fundraising profile – primary source), accessed June 2026.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Natan Odenheimer, "The Kabbalist Who Would Be King of a New Jewish Monarchy in Israel", Forward, 14 October 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "How one hilltop became an incubator for Israeli settler violence", +972 Magazine (left-wing), 2 January 2020.
- ↑ "Army to Curb Rampaging Israel Settlers", Los Angeles Times, 3 June 1989.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 "Shift & Shake: Jewish Terrorism", Times of Israel blogs (opinion), 27 September 2023.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 David Biale, David Assaf, Benjamin Brown, Uriel Gellman, Samuel C. Heilman, Moshe Rosman, Gadi Sagiv and Marcin Wodziński, Hasidism: A New History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018, p. 798.
- ↑ Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, Chabad centers: Yits'har Lubavitch.com, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "The King's Torah: A Rabbinic Text or a Call to Terror?", Haaretz, 22 January 2010.
- ↑ Tomer Zarchin, "Israel's AG Closes Probe Into Authors of Allegedly Racist Book", Haaretz, 29 May 2012.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Marcy Oster, "Case closed against 'The King's Torah' authors", JTA, 28 May 2012.
- ↑ "Case Closed Against Authors of 'The King's Torah'", Arutz Sheva (settler-aligned outlet), May 2012.
- ↑ "No indictment against King's Torah authors", Ynet, 28 May 2012.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Border Police force takes over Yitzhar yeshiva", Times of Israel, April 2014.
- ↑ "Teen charged with attacking police in Yitzhar", Times of Israel, April 2014.
- ↑ "Ya'alon extends IDF's seizure of Yitzhar yeshiva by 3 months", Times of Israel, June 2014.
- ↑ Tamar Pileggi, "IDF lifts seizure of radical West Bank yeshiva", Times of Israel, 2 June 2015.
- ↑ "Alleged Jewish extremists banned from West Bank, Jerusalem", Times of Israel, August 2015.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, "Financial Sanctions Notice: Global Human Rights", GOV.UK, 15 October 2024, accessed 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, "The UK Sanctions List", GOV.UK, entry GHR0138 (Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva), accessed 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and David Lammy, "New UK sanctions target illegal outposts and organisations supporting extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank", GOV.UK, 15 October 2024, accessed 31 October 2026.
- ↑ Companies House, "OD YOSEF CHAI YESHIVA – Disqualification details", Find and update company information, GOV.UK, accessed 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "'Price-tag' tactics of West Bank Jewish settlers", BBC News, 17 September 2012.
- ↑ Tessa Satherley, Unity and Opposites in Israel's Settler Movement: Rabbi Tzvi Yisrael Tau and Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2015), p. 195.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Satherley (2015), p. 183.
- ↑ Satherley (2015), p. 193.
- ↑ Satherley (2015), pp. 175, 186 n. 26.