JERUSALEM — The leaders of World Bnei Akiva said they will hold an emergency meeting on whether or not to remove the movement’s secretary general following his call for avenging the murder of three Israeli teens with blood.
The governing body of the worldwide religious Zionist youth movement will hold the meeting in Israel within the next two weeks on the future of Rabbi Noam Perel, Ha'aretz reported Sunday. Rabbi Perel apologized for his inflammatory statements for the second time on Sunday.
“The call for the Israeli government to look after the lives of our children must not be confused in any way with any suggestion of revenge, words which should not be used by any person, and certainly not educators and leaders,” Perel said in a statement, according to Ha'aretz. “I cannot express to you how badly this error has caused me to feel, and especially its unintended consequences.”
Bnei Akiva, which has approximately 30,000 members, operates separately from Bnei Akiva of Israel.
Rabbi Perel deleted and had apologized earlier for his Facebook post, in which he wrote, “The travesty will be atoned for with the enemy’s blood, not with our tears. A whole nation and thousands of years of history demands revenge. The government of Israel is convened for a meeting of vengeance that is not a mourning sitting. Leaders have gone crazy at the sight of the bodies of our sons, a government that would make the army of searchers into an army of avengers.”
The post came hours after the bodies of the three Israelis were discovered in a field north of Hebron, 18 days after they were reported missing. Following the teens’ funerals, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped and murdered in what is likely a revenge killing.
Norway’s Jewish community has called for Rabbi Perel’s ouster.
On Sunday, the group American Friends of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva (AFYBA)said it was "deeply saddened to learn of the inflammatory comments made recently on Facebook by the World Bnei Akiva Youth Movement Secretary General, Rabbi Noam Perel, in reaction to the kidnapping and brutal murder of teenagers Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach.
"We are thankful that Rabbi Perel immediately retracted his comments and issued an apology when he realized that his use of Biblical analogies to call for the IDF to take harsh steps against Hamas were misinterpreted by some readers as a call to vigilantism," the group added.
"We wish to make clear that the World Bnei Akiva Youth Movement, which deals with non-formal Zionist education in the Diaspora, is an independent organization and is not part of the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva network of schools in Israel. Rabbi Perel's comments were his own and should not be construed to reflect the educational values of YBA schools in Israel or AFYBA."
In an apology on his Facebook page, Rabbi Perel wrote that, "Following the discovery of the bodies of the three students, Eyal, Gilad and Naftali, murdered in cold blood, I wrote a Facebook post that has been widely misunderstood. My words have been misrepresented due to their biblical and poetic style. I deeply and unreservedly apologise for the anger that this has caused. Particularly in times of national tragedy it is incumbent upon leaders and educators to be more precise and careful in words than I have demonstrated."