Rabbi Menachem Froman | Rabbi, Peace Activist, Settler

Menachem Froman was an Orthodox rabbi, a founder of the settlement movement, and a peacemaker and negotiator with close ties to Palestinian religious leaders.

A native Israeli from a rabbinical family of the Ger hasidic sect, Froman was a student at the noted Mercaz HaRav Kook yeshiva in Jerusalem. He served as paratrooper during the Six Day War and was an early member of the Gush Emunim settler movement.

He was a founder of the settlement of Tekoa and served as its chief rabbi. Although he was part the settler “Mayflower generation,” but he followed his own path: meeting with Arafat and Hamas and endorsing a Palestinian state. Froman was known for the spiritual, musical, and kabalistic teachings he conducted in Tekoa in recent years.

He died March 3, 2013 after a long struggle with illness.

This interview, in English, was conducted in Sept. 2011 and is a 4 minute excerpt of a longer interview. A 26-minute excerpt is also available on our site here. Additional Froman interviews.

MENACHEM FROMAN INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

The settler movement
Froman: I have the grace of God to be one of the first, one of the Mayflower, of the settlement movement. All of us students of Rabbi Kook, that is his picture here. We are those with the blue blood, all of us, we are students of a Yeshiva, by the name, Mercaz haRav. I didn’t come here because here there is diamond or gas or gold. I came here in order to combine myself to our heritage to our legacy. I came here for religious reasons.

Peace is the goal of life
Froman: In the center of religion stands god. And the name of god in Hebrew, as well as in Arabic, one of the names of god is shalom. Or in Arabic salam. So if religion is your devotion to god, you are devoted to peace. Peace is the end of any human activity. Peace is the goal of our life, and therefore if we came here for religious reasons, you can also say that we came here in order to bring peace, to work for peace.

A revolution
Froman: In order to come to what I define as the natural task of the settlements, to be the bridge between Israelis and Palestinians, not only physically but also spiritually, we have to make a revolution. Many settlers hate the Palestinians and many Palestinians hate the settlers. Peace by definition is a revolution.

The bridge
Froman:I hope that the holy land, the land of god, the land of peace ,will be the place where peace between Muslims and western civilizations will be solved. I pray that we the settlers, who choose to live among the Muslims, will be the bridge between the two parts of the world.