One of the leaders of the religious Zionist, Rabbi Chaim Druckman dies on Sunday at the age of 90, according to West Bank settlement he stood at the head of.
Druckman served as a Knesset member and was a spiritual leader of religious Zionist parties. He succumbed to complications of COVID-19 after a long battle.
A native of Poland, Druckman escaped the Nazis as a child, arrived in Israel with adopted parents and only reunited with his family after the war.
He was awarded the Israel Prize in 2012 for his contribution to Jewish education.
He was involved in religious education, the Bnei Akivah youth movement and later presided over the Hesder Yeshiva program which allows religious studies to continue alongside military service. This did not prevent him from declaring that soldiers should refuse to obey orders of their IDF commanders, to remove settlements, ahead of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
Druckman was a major broker in Israeli politics.
Druckman was first elected to the Knesset in 1977 on the National Religious Party's (NRP) list and served as deputy minister for religious affairs.
He was a leading voice in the Gush Emunim settler movement and founded the Or Etzion Yeshiva on the West Bank which he headed until his death.
Druckman established himself as a spiritual leader among religious Zionists and preached the connection between the land of Israel, the Torah, and the people of Israel.
In 2004, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon appointed him head of the government conversion authority, hoping to expedite the conversion of hundreds-thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom were of non-Jewish descendants according to the Halakha, a task that Sharon saw as a national mission.
He became an acceptable authority in different streams of the Jewish religious sector with increasing sway over political matters. And as such had acted to strengthen right-wing religious political alliances with the mainstream political right, most recently, bringing about the partnership of Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich with then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He had been criticized for failing to act decisively against religious leaders accused of sexual assault and defended them from criminal prosecution.