More politicians want to fire the rabbis
Minister without portfolio and MK Benny Begin (Likud) has come out strongly against the rabbis who signed a letter calling on the public not to sell or rent real estate to Arabs. “One must differentiate between the legal and public situation,” Begin told The Jerusalem Post, stressing the public significance of such a discriminatory letter. “From a moral-public point of view, the city rabbis should not be able to continue to proceed carrying on their public responsibilities, if they do not retract their letter, as some have already done.”It also turns out that Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef has refused to sign the letter.
While not elected by the public, they are publicly appointed figures who serve in official positions as municipal rabbis, Begin said.
“It would be morally-publicly impossible for them to continue in their official positions on behalf of the public,” he said, reiterating a similar statement he made on Thursday morning, before [Attorney General Yaakov] Weinstein made his announcement [that he was opening an investigation. CiJ] public.
When asked if the public might side with the rabbis on this issue, as suggested by a few recent polls, Begin explained that the rabbis were appointed by the state, the establishment, which is against such sentiment.
As for the polls, well, it might be that “once again I am in disagreement with the public,” he said.
In response to a question from the Post about what practical measures the government might take against these rabbis, Begin replied that “first of all, we must respond, publicly, to indicate to the public, to the Arab sector, that we do not agree with the letter.”
A group of right-wing activists recently approached head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in an attempt to convince him to add his signature to the letter against renting or selling land in Israel to non-Jews, Channel 2 reported Sunday night.Meanwhile, National Union Chairman Yaakov Katz has written a letter to Attorney General Weinstein.
According to the report, the senior Sephardi adjudicator refused to sign, and told the activists that it was “an unnecessary and harmful petition, such statements shouldn’t be made, next thing we know Jews in London and Paris will be told the same thing.”
“My bewilderment comes as we have never heard you similarly instructing your attorneys to examine criminal elements in the declarations of radical-left public figures, who demonstrate and ceaselessly that homes in Jerusalem should not be sold or rented to Jews,” Katz wrote. “The perplexity is even greater, since your office is in the Shimon Hatzadik [Sheikh Jarrah] neighborhood, where weekly such demonstrations take place.”Yes, the attorney general's office is known to lean strongly left and secular.
Katz urged Weinstein’s swift response, “to refute the sentiments within the public I represent,” which might “feel that you are continuing the path your predecessors led and the dominant line among your attorneys, which displays hatred and persecution against anything that smacks of Judaism and Torah.”
In the meantime, the controversy is escalating, with another organization opening up an office to 'out' Jews who sell or rent land to Arabs.
The Lehava anti-assimilation organization announced on Sunday that it is opening a telephone center against the phenomenon of Jews selling or renting homes to Arabs. The announcement follows the rabbinical statement of opposition to such sales or rentals that has been signed by hundreds of rabbis and educators.Hey if selling or renting your home to an Arab is nothing of which to be ashamed, no one should mind if the fact that they do so is made public, right?
People calling 052 225 8183 will hear a recorded message in Hebrew telling them to leave details about people selling or renting their homes to Arabs. Lehava will then verify the information and publish the names of the people on a monthly basis.
Heh.
Labels: Benny Begin, Deuteronomy 7:2, Lehava, renting or selling land to non-Jews in Israel, Yaakov Weinstein
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:38 PM
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