Rabbi Haïm Drukman, spiritual leader of religious Zionism in Israel, has died

the rabbi Haim Drukman, spiritual leader of religious Zionism in Israel, died on Sunday night from the coronavirus. Drukman, 90, has been the most important religious figure of the Zionist religious currentrepresenting 12% of Israel’s Jewish population.

The deceased rabbi, hospitalized in the intensive care unit of the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, had been diagnosed with Covid-19 on December 10. He had already contracted the disease 10 months earlier. But this time his condition was not good and they had asked for prayers for his “speedy recovery”.

“The Jewish people lose one of the spiritual giants of his generationa just man, an educator, a man who dedicated his life to the Torah, to the Jewish people and to the land of Israel,” said Bezalel Smotrich, 42. The MP is one of Drukman’s disciples, currently leading Zionism religious and will be appointed finance minister in the next government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which has the support of the right and conservatism.

“The State of Israel has lost a great spiritual leader and I have lost a personal friend whom I held in high esteem,” said Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister-elect, offering his condolences to his family.

Drukman was born in Poland in 1932. As a child he escaped deportation during World War II and emigrated to British Mandate Palestine in 1944.

He was a student of Rabbi Tzvi Yehouda Kook, the spiritual leader of the movement that founded settlements in the occupied West Bank after the 1967 war. He was considered one of his successors.

His entry into politics occurred in 1977. For 14 years he held a seat as a deputy in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. In 1993 he survived being shot by a Palestinian at his vehicle, an attack in which his driver died.

Drukman, married with 9 children, was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 2012 for his contribution to Israeli society.

The Yeshivat Har Etzion (a Torah study unit where the rabbi served for more than 60 years) assured that this Sunday “the crown fell” from the heads after the death of the “oldest rabbi of religious Zionism” ,

“May God comfort the family and all of us, in continuing his path, building the Torah and the Land, and in the growth of the People of Israel in his Land”, they expressed from the entity, in which they expressed “a bitter pain”. From there he had directed a network of schools in close contact with Israeli youth.

Prayer requests in the last days of Haïm Drukman

Unlike the coronavirus picture that had unfolded in early 2022, Rabbi Drukman was admitted to intensive care, in serious condition. In recent weeks, his disciples had asked for a prayer chain and his relatives had been summoned from Hadassah hospital due to the patient’s advanced critical condition.

“United, all the people of Israel pray for the recovery of our teacher and rabbi, Haim Druckman. Please pray for the recovery of Rabbi Haim Meir ben Milka,” said Smotrich, a future minister, when Drukman’s diagnosis was been made public.

A few days later, the family released a statement thanking them for their support. “Despite the difficult situation, we believe and hope in his salvation,” they affirmed through that public letter, written after the Zionist referent had overcome difficult hours of unconsciousness and complications of his condition.

Finally this Sunday the doctors confirmed his death.

“The Rabbi was admitted to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in very serious condition and was diligently cared for by ICU staff for the past 10 days, but was finally pronounced dead this night,” they said in a published statement. this Sunday and picked up by the Jewish Link page, which also noted that the rabbi had been revived on Wednesday.

Druckman had arrived at the Jerusalem Medical Center after being treated for the first few days at the home, from where he had been transferred due to health complications.