RASHI, RAMBAM and RAMALAMADINGDONG
A Quizbook of Jewish Trivia Facts & Fun
A Quizbook of Jewish Trivia Facts & Fun
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Israeli far right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, is set to become the Minister of Israeli Security in the new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir is a very controversial figure. He was a follower of Meir Kahane and an advocate for removing Arabs from the West Bank. Ben-Gvir hung a picture on his living room wall of Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish terrorist who murdered 29 Muslim worshipers in Hebron in 1994. He only took the picture down after entering politics in 2020, saying, “I’m declaring that for the sake of unity and a right-wing victory in the elections, I’m removing the photograph in my living room.” The Ministry of Israeli Security is an expanded version of the current Ministry of Internal Security, with increased authority over border police in the occupied territories. Given Ben-Gvir’s radical right-wing beliefs and statements about Arabs, many in Israel and worldwide Jewry are fearful of the steps he may take in that position. For example, Abe Foxman, former head of the ADL, recently said in response to the inclusion of Ben-Gvir in the government (along with Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right politician whom Netanyahu is appointing as finance minister), “I never thought that I would reach that point where I would say that my support of Israel is conditional...I love Israel and I want to love Israel as a Jewish and democratic state that respects pluralism.” What else did Ben-Gvir previously do that was controversial?
Itamar Ben Gvir 1 by דוד דנברג is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A. Two weeks before Yitchak Rabin was assassinated, Itamar Ben-Gvir stole the dog from Rabin’s yard and held it up, saying “We got to his dog, and we’ll get to him, too.”
B. Two weeks before Yitchak Rabin was assassinated, Itamar Ben-Gvir broke the hood ornament off of Rabin’s car and held it up, saying “We got to his car, and we’ll get to him, too.”
C. When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke, Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated with a bar-b-q and stated, “We are, of course, happy. We hope there is a message here to everyone who wants to harm the land of Israel: the land of Israel is more powerful than all of you.”
D. Two weeks before Yitchak Rabin was assassinated, Itamar Ben-Gvir stole Rabin’s Nobel Peace Prize from his office and held it up, saying “He doesn't deserve a peace prize, he deserves a death prize.”
E. Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a picture of himself holding a brick and wrote, “I praise the Big Bad Wolf for blowing down the straw and stick houses of those unkosher pigs. But he failed to blow down the third pig’s brick house, so we got to the bricks, and we’ll get to those treif pigs, too.”
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