Thousands gather for Rabbi Chaim Druckman’s funeral

(A7) Thousands of mourners gathered in the town of Merkaz Shapira, southeast of Ashdod, Monday morning, to pay their final respects to the spiritual leader of the Religious Zionist movement, Rabbi Chaim Druckman.

The funeral procession departed at 12:00 noon, making its way from Merkaz Shapira to the nearby town of Masu’ot Yitzhak.

Rabbi Druckman, the 90-year-old former lawmaker and founder of the Ohr Etzion Yeshiva, passed away Sunday night at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem, weeks after he was hospitalized with COVID.

A number of prominent national figures and political leaders gathered to eulogize Rabbi Druckman in Merkaz Shakpira, ahead of the funeral service at the Masu’ot Yitzhak cemetery Monday afternoon, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel David Lau, Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem and former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel Moshe Amar, Ramat Gan Yeshiva Dean Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, Beit El Yeshiva Dean Rabbi Zalman Baruch Melamed, Jerusalem Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern, Religious Zionist Party chief MK Bezalel Smotrich, and Bnei Akiva Secretary-General Yigal Klein.

“Today, we have lost one of the greatest disciples of Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest Torah scholars in our times. Rabbi Druckman’s life was full of doing, full of achievements,” President Herzog said.

Speaking at the funeral, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu also paid tribute to the rabbi: “Despite his illness, he had enormous vitality and a great light shone forth from him.”

“Rabbi Druckman invested his entire soul in each and every student, in each and every educator and yeshiva, in the Bnei Akiva movement, in military academies, in the settlements,” he added. “He did not shrink from waging war on the matters that go to the heart of the state – the integrity of the land, national values, educating the youth toward a Jewish identity, halting terrorism, and ensuring the strength of the IDF.”