Shlomo Aviner

Aviner moved from France to Israel in the 1960s.[6] He studied at Mercaz Harav and became a close student of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook.[1]

In a 2013 interview, Aviner recalled leaving military service after the Six-Day War to study in a yeshiva.[7] He said that he held an electronics-engineering degree, had experience in nuclear research, and was approached by the Mossad about a scientific-security role abroad.[7] In his account, another approach approximately twelve years later led to an assignment in Iran, where he used his French passport to register at the French consulate in Tehran as a precaution.[7]

Aviner described three days of preparation and missions around Passover and Israeli Independence Day.[7] He said his Passover cover was that of a French rabbi checking the availability of matzah for the Jewish community; he prepared business cards presenting himself as a special emissary of the rabbinate and prayed at Tehran’s main synagogue.[7] Recalling the experience, he said: “During the day I wasn’t afraid, because I didn’t have time, but at night I couldn’t sleep.”[7] He also recalled that his aunt in Paris, whose crystal chandeliers were sold across the Arab world, later served as a Mossad contact.[7]

Aviner became rabbi of Beit El in 1981 and headed Ateret Yerushalayim in Jerusalem’s Old City.[8] The yeshiva, also known as Ateret Cohanim, was founded in 1983 and operated from several buildings in the Muslim Quarter.[1] In 2008 it had close to 200 students, including married men in its kollel, and Aviner headed its higher yeshiva program.[1] Most students subsequently undertook at least three years of military service, while a minority entered hesder programs combining religious study and service.[1] Aviner also advised religious married couples on family-purity laws.[8]

Aviner’s teaching assigns religious significance to Jewish sovereignty and the army.[9] He described Jewish rule over the Land of Israel as a collective Torah commandment of the Jewish people, even when the government did not resemble the kingdom of David.[9] He identified three religious purposes of the army: saving the people, securing the land through the commandment to settle and conquer it, and sanctifying God’s name.[9] He argued that the army was not merely an invention of the prime minister that individuals could freely choose whether to join.[9]

His pamphlet Kuntres She-Lo Ya'alu Ke-Homah, translated as “Do Not Ascend Like a Wall,” examines the Talmudic “Three Oaths,” including an oath understood in the text as warning against returning to the Land of Israel en masse.[3] It presents thirteen explanations relating the oath to the revival of the land and nation, including permission from other nations, return in stages, and differing interpretations of the oath’s legal force.[3] His book She'elot u-Teshuvot Intifada addresses policy questions arising from the Intifada, including collective punishment, press censorship, and population exchange.[10] A later halakhic discussion reports that, in considering a hypothetical evacuation of settlements from territory returned to Arab sovereignty, he argued that disobedience of modern military authorities could be punishable, but it described that conclusion as not unequivocal.[10]

During debate over the 2005 disengagement, Aviner participated in a meeting at the Yesha Council offices in Jerusalem concerning efforts to delay the plan.[9] He opposed soldiers refusing evacuation orders and called for lawful, peaceful demonstrations rather than roadblocks or disruption of the public.[2] He supported a national referendum and argued that popular protest might change the prime minister’s mind, but said residents should leave without force if evacuation went ahead.[2] He warned that passive resistance could escalate into physical confrontation, citing Atzmona as an example of a community that had departed without resistance and subsequently rebuilt.[11]

Explaining the decision at Kfar Maimon not to proceed as planned, Aviner said it was an internal choice rather than a response to a warning from the army or police.[9] He rejected a confrontation between settlers and soldiers: “You tell us: choose between the heroes of Gush Katif and the heroes of the army, but we do not want to choose.”[9] A retrospective in TRADITION argues that Aviner and Rabbi Zvi Tau remained opposed to disobedience but, as disengagement approached, preferred that religious soldiers avoid direct participation in evacuation rather than actively carry it out.[12]

After disengagement, Aviner proposed a party that would “speak[] in the name of Torah” and unite different religious constituencies.[13] His proposed grouping extended across national-religious and national ultra-Orthodox communities, including Chabad and Meimad.[13]

Women’s modesty and public roles recur in Aviner’s religious guidance.[14][15] In writing from 1977–1978, he stated that “modesty is one of the characteristic features of Israel.”[15] A reported 2008 ruling required women to wear modest clothing even when alone in darkness, on the grounds that God is everywhere, and prohibited trousers.[16] In 2012 he told students that women should ideally not occupy senior Knesset positions because public exposure was immodest, and that in principle women should not vote, although he would permit a woman who wished to vote to do so under present conditions.[17] In a letter to Tzipi Hotovely later that day, he described nonparticipation as the Torah ideal but said that, given parties’ women’s quotas, voting for the most suitable woman was a moral obligation.[17]

In 2019 Aviner opposed Ayelet Shaked’s leadership of a religious-right party.[14] Although calling her “really wonderful,” he argued that politics was “no place for the female role” and that religious political struggles should be led by people who dedicated their lives to Torah.[14] He said a religious party was needed because Israel concerned faith as well as security and the economy, and maintained his opposition even if another choice of leader cost votes.[14]

Aviner also opposed women’s enlistment in the IDF.[18] In 2018 he argued that service alongside men was immodest, advised religious girls to refuse enlistment under those conditions, and criticized military interviews of women seeking religious exemptions as intrusive.[19] He said that he supported the IDF and expected it to follow state law, which he understood to protect women declaring religious observance from forced conscription.[19] Responding separately to a male yeshiva student, he called military service a great mitzvah but advised seeking a unit without women and postponing enlistment if that was impossible.[20] These positions coincided with an increase in religious female recruits from 935 in 2010 to 2,700 in 2017, supported by parents, educators, Aluma, and preparatory programs accompanying the women through enlistment and service.[18]

On organ donation, Aviner said in 2007 that he had signed an ADI donor card approximately fifteen years earlier and also held an American donor card.[21] He regarded donation as saving lives and accepted brain death, including brain-stem death, as death when established through examinations and tests.[21] In 2023 he initially advised against HPV vaccination for students at religious girls’ schools, but reversed his position after clarification from a medical specialist.[22] His yeshiva said that safety concerns had been rebutted and evidence of effectiveness had accumulated.[22]

In 2009 Aviner opposed educational visits to Nazi death camps in Poland, arguing that leaving Israel was permitted only for a mitzvah and that such trips did not qualify.[23] He recommended remembrance through films, books, Yad Vashem, and survivor testimony instead, and questioned the trips’ educational value.[23] He also objected to economic benefits reaching Poles, whom he accused of collaboration with the Nazis.[23]

In 2010 he joined more than fifty national-religious and ultra-Orthodox municipal rabbis in signing a statement calling for a halakhic prohibition on selling or renting land and apartments in Israel to non-Jews.[24] The signatories cited concerns including intermarriage and blasphemy, assigned landlords responsibility for the consequences of renting, and proposed warnings followed by public distancing from violators.[24] In 2026, answering a question about Arab-Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad, Aviner said that a non-Jew could be a private citizen but could not exercise leadership in the Land of Israel, even as a “righteous gentile.”[4]

Aviner opposed a 2011 initiative matching religious gay men and lesbians for marriage and child-rearing, arguing that children needed parents who loved one another.[25] He instead recommended what he called a “reparative method” for homosexuality and claimed it had helped people.[25] After a Health Ministry warning about conversion therapies in 2014, he continued supporting Etzat Nefesh and referrals to such therapies, provided they were legal and conducted by professionals.[5] A 2023 discussion in TRADITION likewise characterizes him as continuing to support reparative therapy.[26]

Aviner has held prominent religious-Zionist teaching and institutional roles as rabbi of Beit El and head of Ateret Yerushalayim.[1] His public teaching connects Torah, Jewish sovereignty, and military responsibility, while his response to disengagement emphasized preserving solidarity between soldiers and settlement residents.[9]

In a retrospective on disengagement, Yair Sheleg describes Aviner as continuing to attract students and requests for guidance even as his position became more divisive.[27] Sheleg argues that radical opponents of disengagement resented what they saw as Aviner’s excessively statist approach, particularly his sharp opposition to disobeying orders or acting against IDF soldiers.[27]

Aviner’s statements on women’s political participation drew criticism from female politicians and religious and political organizations; the Jewish Home party publicly distanced itself from his 2019 remarks about Shaked.[6][17] Religious-Zionist groups and rabbis also criticized his advice to postpone enlistment when a male-only unit was unavailable.[20] His position on non-Jewish political leadership drew opposition from Tzohar, which argued that non-Jews could hold leadership roles in a democracy, while other religious-Zionist rabbis denounced his position on renting to Arabs.[4][14]

Religious LGBTQ organizations disputed claims of successful orientation change and described psychological harm from conversion therapies.[5] His initial HPV-vaccine advice was challenged by an immunology expert before his reversal.[22] In 2016, Elli Fischer reported that Aviner had applied the term rodef, a pursuer or attacker, to people working against the Chief Rabbinate amid disputes over independent conversion panels; Fischer also noted Aviner’s subsequent explanation that he had not meant the term literally.[28] In April 2019, Aviner suggested that the Notre Dame Cathedral fire could have been divine retribution for the burning of Talmud volumes in Paris eight centuries earlier.[14]

A 2009 report described allegations by two women that Aviner had sexually harassed them and fostered inappropriate emotional intimacy and dependence.[8] Aviner denied wrongdoing and said his remarks had been taken out of context.[8] Supporters helped the women pursue a rabbinical-court suit seeking a public apology; one later withdrew after becoming worn down by delays.[8] Aviner agreed to a rabbinical panel’s request to stop counseling women on family-purity matters; the report did not establish a finding of guilt.[8]