Moshe Hirsch, a leading rabbi from the tiny ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Natorei Karta group, died on Sunday in his home in the capital’s Mea She’arim neighborhood. He was 86.
The New York native, who was the son-in-law of the Natorei Karta
founder Rabbi Aharon Katzenellenbogen and studied at the Lakewood
Yeshiva in New Jersey before moving to Jerusalem, never became an
Israeli citizen.
Hirsch was famous for his ties with some of Israel’s enemies, most
famously Yasser Arafat, who appointed the rabbi minister for Jewish
affairs in the Palestinian Authority’s government.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas said he would send a representative to
Hirsch’s funeral, which took place on Sunday evening at the Mount of
Olives cemetery in Jerusalem. Army Radio reported that during the
funeral, right-wing activists confronted the Natorei Karta people,
heckling them and their deceased leader. The activists were eventually
removed from the scene.