AAQ – they’re still very much sefardi; they meticulously keep sefardi minhagim and mesorah, and the yeshiva dress is just that – because they are bnei Torah. That’s how sefardi bnei torah dress in eretz yisroel too.
If someone wanted to revive the old sefardi bnei Torah way of dressing, then great! My point was that they dropped their goyishe dress that is common in the uneducated elements
What is the source for the chofetz chaim having to see rabbi kook? His students, as recorded by several including the son in law of rav yerucham gorelik, witnessed him belittle rabbi kook in grand fashion when he saw the latter praise the mechalelei shabbos soccer players. The former was eating breakfast and stopped when he heard, he banged on the table “kook muck shuck!!!” Ask any fallsburg magid shiur; rav abba gorelik related the story from his fathee rav yerucham all the time.
Rabbi kook has had a major PR job done to him over the years. The charedi world erased him from his once-had prominence, and the dati leumi world has reinvented him as a universally accepted figure.
Neither are true. He was initially held in very high esteem until his many aberrations were discovered and disseminated. Not least among them was his copying and pasting of 19th century Hegelian philosophy into Judaism. His acceptance and praise of anti religious murderers also was considered chanifa.
His statements that Rembrandt was a “tzadik” despite his not being a “7 mitzvos” follower and his numerous nude paintings… His vegetarianism and “compassion” which somehow was greater than all the tzadikim before him who ate meat, only served to buttress his growth into a divergent figure, not representative of normative judaism.
This change was made largely under the leadership of the chazon ish, who forbade his hashkafa books. See sefer maaseh ish for many details about this.
Rav Hutner famously removed rabbi kook’s picture from his sukkah, despite having learned by him.
These issues I’m sure have been discussed here a lot. Thankfully we have Gedolei Torah who are without these controversies, so why cling to the messianic speculations of people whose predictions have never come to pass? (I’m referring to his stated assurance that all the secular leaders of Israel would do teshuva)
Admittedly some gedolim defended him by saying that his ahavas yisroel made him go too far with the secular people, and this might be true. It also might be true that he was swept up in haskalah (he definitely studied secular philosophy), a lot of possibilities remain, but none substantiate his position of adding nationalism to a religion that has for millenia maintained its nationhood solely due to Torah and nothing else.