Israel Hess was a radical right-wing Israeli rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

.

Israel Hess was a controversial figure who advocated exterminating the Palestinians as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

. On February 26, 1980, Bat Kol, the student publication of Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...

, published an article by Hess entitled "Genocide

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

: A Commandment of the Torah

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

." Hess interpreted Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...

 25:17 as a commandment to obliterate the memory of Amalek

Amalek

The Amalekites are a people mentioned a number of times in the Hebrew Bible. They are considered to be descended from an ancestor Amalek....

, which he considered to be the Palestinians. In the article, Hess argued in favor of "racial purity" and described the antagonism between Israel and Amalek as "an expression of the antagonism between light and darkness, the pure and the unclean."

In response to the article, the president of Bar-Ilan Rabbi Emanuel Rackman

Emanuel Rackman

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman was an American Modern Orthodox Rabbi, who held pulpits in major congregations and helped draw attention to the plight of Refuseniks in the then-Soviet Union and attempted to resolve the dilemma of the Agunah, a woman who cannot remarry because her husband will not grant a...

, dismissed Hess from his position at the school.