Ultra-Orthodox rabbi’s anti-Zionist remarks stir Israel election row

Comments by one of Israel’s most senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis postulating that Jews may have been better off without a state have prompted controversy in the country. In footage broadcast by Channel 12 on Monday, the 96-year-old Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party, also said that soldiers adhering to “Religious Zionism” killed in Israel’s wars were dying because of what their rabbis had taught them. The remarks, made at a closed meeting at his home in Bnei Brak, have set off a political storm three weeks before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election.