This is a guest post by Eyal via Harry’s Place
News reports in Israel today tell us of a new letter, signed by nearly over 40 chief municipal rabbis, forbidding Jews to sell or rent property to non-Jews:
Dozens of Israel’s municipal chief rabbis have signed on to a new religious ruling that would forbid the rental of homes to gentiles in a move particularly aimed against Arabs, Haaretz has learned.
The religious ruling comes just months after a group of 18 prominent rabbis, including the chief rabbi of Safed, signed a call urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.
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The signatories also called on the religious community to voice support Rabbi Eliyahu, who could face trial for incitement against Arabs. Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman has also asked Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman to begin the process of suspending Eliyahu immediately from his post as municipal rabbi.
This letter follows a trend of religious rulings against renting property to Arabs in Sefad and foreign workers in Tel-Aviv.
This is what happens when extremism by messianic religious zealots isn’t nipped at the bud. When extreme religious figures begin preaching hate, and feel they can get away with it, then eventually it will become legitimized and excused under the guise of religious belief. We have heard this type of message before, with no significant state response so far.
The signatories to this letter are not fringe personas, preaching to a small community of religious zealots. They are the chief rabbinical figures of many mainstream, middle-class towns and cities, receiving a state salary paid by the tax-payer.
As Haaretz has written before:
Not only are they not acting according to the guidelines, they are exploiting their status and using public bodies and the means at their disposal to incite, inflame passions and provoke divisiveness in Israeli society. They use their titles and public positions for dangerous preaching and to give official cover for their defamatory words.
The justice minister, the religious services minister and the mayors where these rabbis serve must warn them that they are abusing their positions and even suspend them if necessary. Otherwise, they too will bear responsibility for turning Israeli society into a tool in the hands of religious racist fanatics.
Had the title of the story would have read “Jews” instead of Arabs, we would all be crying “antisemitism”, and rightly so. This is flat out racism in its ugliest forms. It has nothing to do with religious belief, but rather for covering up bigotry with religious justification.
This type of behavior should not go unchallenged by the state authorities, and it’s high time that Netanyahu and his government to do something about it. So far the government’s reaction has been pretty minor, and consisted only of Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman asking for the Sefad municipal rabbi, who had previously signed a similar letter, to be suspended. However, we have not heard the response from the Justice Minister, Interior Minister, or indeed from the Prime Minister himself.
It is about time we did.
3 Comments
Racism in its ugliest form?
Ha! Racism gets a lot uglier than that!
Try…um…Hitler and his friend the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. They took their racism somewhat further.
Some of what is called “racism” is actually protection against racism. Get rid of the instigating racism and the response might just disappear. I don’t think Jews are “racist” in countries where they are allowed to live freely; they are just “racist” when they are under threat, from either weapons or deliberate demographic growth.
Yet again, people desperate to preserve their identity (and existence) are called “bigots”. What a useful word!
oh, come *on*, PDG – this looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. it is a FECKING DUCK. these people are racists. it is a BIG problem. the fact that other people are REALLY REALLY RACIST AND VIOLENT TOO does not absolve them of responsibility. it is a shameful story and i am appalled by it. there’s no excuse possible. i’m glad someone posted it.
b’shalom
bananabrain
Bananabrain: You are too easily outraged. As is the person who wrote this story. What words do you reserve for actual incitement to murder, or murder itself? Your head must explode at that point!
I don’t want people from a certain religion in my street. I have heard too many stories about the way they take over areas and make life difficult for those not in their religion. Call it what you like, fall about in horror, froth at the mouth if you will, but I think I have the right to be prejudiced and will remain like that until I change my mind. I don’t wish anyone any harm…they can build their own houses or rent elsewhere, I just like to dress how I like and do what I like without the presence of people who are brainwashed into believing a load of insane rubbish that makes them impossible to talk to. There’s no slippery slope here and I know plenty of ordinary people who feel the same way.
You have to wonder…why don’t the people who are the subject of the prejudice talked about in the article think about it in another way, as in questioning why others don’t want them around? Maybe they could look at history, look at their own behaviour, their own discriminatory religion and the violence and nastiness it exhibits around the world on a daily basis.
This “racism” you are so upset about just doesn’t worry me so much. You can’t force people to like each other and I don’t see why anyone should be forced to live next to people who believe that Jews are “the worst of creatures” or whatever the Koran so charmingly says.