Tens of thousands of people gathered in Israel today for the funeral procession for the late, influential Rabbi Chaim Druckman. Druckman died yesterday at the age of 90. He was considered the spiritual leader of the religious Zionist movement. He had been treated in the hospital after being infected with the corona virus and succumbed to the disease there. He was to be buried at Masuot Ishak near the coastal city of Ashkelon.
Druckman was known as one of the founding figures of the Israeli settler movement and a vehement opponent of the evacuation of occupied territories.
Born in Kuty in what is now Ukraine in 1932, he survived the Holocaust in hiding with his parents. In 1944 he fled to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1977 he became a member of the National Religious Party in the Israeli Parliament, and in 1981 Deputy Minister of Religion. In 2012, he received the Israel Prize, the country’s highest honor, for his contribution to Jewish education.
President Yitzchak Herzog wrote on the short message service Twitter that Druckman had dedicated his life to the State of Israel and the people of Israel. Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu wrote that Israel has “lost a great spiritual leader”.
