By JONAH MANDEL
Ahead of Tisha Be’av and in the spirit of these days of mourning, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar released on Sunday a lamentation he wrote in the memory of Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, the Baba Elazar, who was stabbed to death in Beersheba on July 29.“Since the killing of Zechariah the prophet, we haven’t had such a horror among Jews, that a priest or prophet should be killed in the house of the lord, by a scoundrel from our people,” Amar wrote in the letter accompanying the poem.“Our rabbis have taught us that the righteous ones are taken to undo a harsh decree, wrote the chief rabbi, “and if we needed such a great sacrifice, who knows how severe that decree would have been.”In the flowery language typical of the genre, the lamentation bemoans Abuhatzeira’s demise, and calls on believers to repent.
Police investigate after torched body found in Israel’s north
