US Ambassador Huckabee: ‘Israel must have scholars’ along with soldiers

The meeting between Lando and Huckabee coincides with Israel’s coalition crisis after a court-mandated push to draft ultra-Orthodox men.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, during a meeting with Rabbi Dov Lando, chairman of the Degel HaTorah Party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, declared that “Israel must have scholars” as well as soldiers.

The former Baptist minister said, “Let me express to you that I do understand that as important as it is to have soldiers, you must also have scholars — scholars who remind you who you are, why you’re here. And soldiers to keep and protect that which God has given them.”

“If only there were many Jews who understood that,” Lando responded.

The meeting between Lando and Huckabee coincides with Israel’s coalition crisis after a court-mandated push to draft ultra-Orthodox men.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party is currently in the process of ousting Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, over his advocacy for strict quotas on the exemption of ultra-orthodox men from the draft.

“The community of Torah and mitzvah-observant Jews in the Holy Land is currently facing a severe crisis,” Lando explained to Huckabee. “The legal system is now issuing arrest warrants against yeshiva students simply for the ‘crime’ of studying Torah.”

Lando emphasized that “any harm to Torah scholars is a blow to all Jews and to their very right to exist.”

He also expressed his “appreciation and respect” for U.S. President Donald Trump and the American people and praised them “for their firm stand as a kingdom of grace in support of the people of Israel, both in the Land and across the globe—especially during the recent conflict with Iran.”