Rabbi Haim Druckman, spiritual leader of religious Zionism in Israel, died of Covid-19 on Sunday night, aged 90, announced Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.
Mentor of deputy Bezalel Smotrich, who will be appointed finance minister in the next government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the rabbi was for decades the most important religious figure of the Zionist current, which represents regarding 12% of the Israeli Jewish population.
“The Jewish people loses one of the spiritual giants of his generation, a righteous man, an educator, a man who dedicated his life to the Torah, the Jewish people and the land of Israel,” said Smotrich.
“The State of Israel has lost a great spiritual leader and I have lost a personal friend whom I hold in high esteem,” lamented Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu.
Born in Poland in 1932, Druckman escaped deportation during World War II and migrated to British-mandated Palestine in 1944.
The religious was a student of Rabbi Tzvi Yehouda Kook, spiritual leader of the movement that founded the colonies in the occupied West Bank following the 1967 war, and was considered one of his successors.
Druckman began his career in politics in 1977 and held a Knesset seat for 14 years. In 1993, he survived a Palestinian shooting at his car that killed his driver.
Druckman received the renowned Israel Prize in 2012 for his contribution to society in the country.
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