55% of Jewish Israelis back ban on sale or rental to Arabs
The chattering classes may not be very happy about the rabbis' letter banning sales or rentals of homes to Arabs, but the Jewish public is largely in favor.A survey by the Panels Institute (link in Hebrew) at the end of last week shows that 55% of Israel's adult Jewish population is in favor of the ban. That includes 41% of secular Israelis, 64% of traditional Israelis and 88% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. 58% oppose firing the rabbis who are state employees and who signed the letter. That includes 46% of secular, 73% of traditional and 92.5% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox.
The survey then asked what you would do if an Arab family moved into your neighborhood. 69% of the secular, 52% of the traditional and 15% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox said they had no problem with that. 24% of the secular, 31% of the traditional and 78% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox said that they would try to stop it.
Margin of error is 4.4%.
I don't expect that the rabbis will be fired, and I suspect that the numbers that support the substance of the ruling are much higher. For years, it's been the seculars of Tel Aviv and its environs who insist that we must separate from the Arabs. But they can't admit rabbis are right about anything, and they can't admit that they agree with refusing to rent to Arabs because, after all, that would make them 'racists.'
The picture at the top is Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Tzfat (Safed) who started all this.
Labels: Deuteronomy 7:2, Lehava, Panels Institute, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, renting or selling land to non-Jews in Israel
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:36 AM
6 Comments:
Yup. And for the same reason I don't expect the Knesset to pass a law to force Jews to rent or sell to Arabs.
I am hopeful that the Israelis are waking up to double-standard. Tolerance is a two way street. If the Palis have death penalty against selling to Jews, why not the Jews? (Of course Jews will not have dealth penalty). I support the Rabbis.
Furthermore, I also think it's time to throw down the "put up or shut up" gauntlet. If the secular Jews really care about the Arabs, let them have Arabs as neighbors.
Lastly, the Palis kept talking about "two states". This is one way of making it a reality without guns and votes. Jews here, Arabs there.
um, I don't think guys that the seculars of Tel Aviv said that Israel needed to separate from Israeli Arabs in Tel Aviv or Tzefat in rental housing while still employing them, say, as waiters or construction workers. I know, you could import Mexicans from the United States!! They also do gardening.
I still maintain that the rabbis were very much in the wrong in their comments.
As I said - the fact is that the rabbis ultimately said it was wrong to rent or sell to Arabs because they "have a different way of life," and because they drag property values down and cause intermarriage. Even if that is true, that does not justify a ban on selling or renting to Arabs. (as I said before - the same reasoning was given for not selling or renting to African Americans in the USA)
As I said before, I would understand if the rabbis spoke of a security concern, or of the unfairness that Arabs can be killed for selling or renting to Jews. But all that is ignored when these type of stories come up, unfortunately, where a rabbi proclaims that the Torah is "racist."
carl,
those "chattering classes" include rav eliashav and rav yosef
the letter was wrong...not based on halachic precepts and the rabbis need to rescind the order
Bacci40,
I have not heard or seen anything on this from Rav Ovadiah Yosef since the initial report a week ago.
Rav Elyashiv did not call for the letter to be withdrawn. He said that some of the people who signed it were hypocritical because they also support the notion of 'temporarily selling' the land of Israel during Shmita. He doesn't approve of the letter (which is why two rabbis withdrew their names on Thursday), but my sense is that's because he doesn't believe the letter should have been issued and not because he disagrees with its content.
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