In his second lecture on R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: The Haredi community in Jerusalem did terrible things to Rav Kook. The Agudah leadership, including R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi were horrified by what happened but they did not publicly protest. You had violent haredim like you have today who did terrible things. Wild kids once burned Rav Kook in effigy. They had a so-called trial where they executed him at the end. And people like Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld refused to condemn these people. Why? Because they were afraid that these wild youths would turn on them.
“You have terrorists in Beit Shemesh today and their rabbis do nothing to stop them.” (Example)
Zvi Yehuda Kook would not attend an Agudat Yisrael conference in the 1950s because he blamed for shortening his father’s life.
In his third lecture on R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinksi for Torah in Motion, history professor Marc B. Shapiro says: “The Edah HaChareidis, (lit. “Haredi Community”) has to bear responsibility for what is going on right now in Israel. Until they condemn them. These people threw rocks. It is only a matter of time until someone is killed.”
“Every time the Edah HaChareidis call a protest, they’re letting the inmates out of the asylum. Every time these people protest, you have violence.”
“These crazy rabbis in Beit Shemesh and elsewhere, you can’t talk to them. You can’t talk to them about the terrorists throwing rocks, the people beating up kids, the people burning things.”
According to Wikipedia: “The Edah HaChareidis, (lit. “Haredi Community”), also known as the Edah for short and popularly as the Badatz, is a prominent Orthodox Jewish communal organization based in Jerusalem, Israel. It represents a large section of the Ashkenazi Haredi community and provides facilities such as kashrus supervision, mikvas, an eruv and a rabbinical court. The Edah HaChareidis is viewed as a continuation of the former leaders of the Yishuv haYashan, and is well known for being strongly opposed to Zionism, which it condemns as heretical and opposed to Judaism.”
