Chairman of the International Association of Holocaust Survivors Noah Flug on Thursday inveighed against a ruling by rabbis prohibiting the rental of homes to non-Jews. “These rabbis need to retract their statement,” Flug told Ynet.
Dozens of municipal rabbis signed a letter Wednesday saying that Jewish halacha forbids renting or selling property in Israel to non-Jews.
The document, which contains over 50 signatures of rabbis serving municipalities from Metula to Eilat, is scheduled to be published in religious newspapers and synagogue leaflets this weekend.
Flug says he was shocked by this revelation. “As someone who suffered as a Jew and underwent the Holocaust, I remember the German Nazis throwing Jews out of their apartments and city centers in order to create ghettos,” he said.
“I remember how they wrote on benches that no Jews were allowed, and of course it was prohibited to sell or rent to Jews. We thought that in our country this wouldn’t happen. This is especially difficult for someone who went through the Holocaust.”
Holocaust survivor Alex Orly told Ynet that “There cannot be discrimination in Israel today, after its founders suffered such horrible discrimination in Europe,” he said.
“The government must come out with a cry against this, the prime minister’s condemnation is not enough. Arabs are citizens of this state. We must give them civil equality or we cannot call ourselves a liberal democratic state.”
Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum also released a statement condemning the letter, calling it “a severe blow to the basic values of our lives as Jews and people living in a democratic country”.
“Past experience teaches us how important yet fragile are our basic values of coexistence and respect for the other. We know that the Jewish people, who knew suffering and persecution and experienced excommunication and the negation of basic rights, has expressed its position on these issues,” the statement said.
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(Source: Ynet)
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19 Responses
Sad that the Holocaust survivors can’t distinguish between the current situation where Jews, who only want to live securely in peace, won’t rent to sworn enemies who want to kill them, and the situation with the Nazi’s YMC”SH, who didn’t want to rent to Jews who were ideal citizens and contributed greatly to their host countries.
kosherkid – you are the one who needs a lesson, to learn to distinguish between security threats and run of the mill housing discrimination. The notion that all Arab citizens of Israel are “sworn enemies” who want “to kill” their Jewish neighbors is as dangerous as it is obscene.
Big difference!
Jews didn’t want to destroy a country
Arabs do! End of conversation..Rabbis correct in their call.
Miriam
YonasonW [2]
Go to the average mosque in Israel and listen to the average sermon… and then tell me what the “run of the mill” arabs are up to…
Liberalizm is one of the most extreme religions, which don’t care about simple common sense.
Saftala – End of conversation? That works with children and for totalitarians not here. Take up your teina with Marav Rav Shteinman – As was reported here, he thinks the ban is racist…and you ignore the many Israeli organizations, people who live the Arab Israeli conflict every day, think you are wrong.
MDshweks – Give me your definition of “Liberalizm” (your spelling) – you are clueless, and ungrateful to the political philosophy that has made this country a magnet for millions of Jews leaving places without liberalism.
Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophies that considers individual liberty and equality to be the most important political goals.
Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism, there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term “liberal” and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for political liberalism, which encompasses support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual’s right to private property, and a transparent system of government. All liberals, as well as some adherents of other political ideologies, support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.
According to author and philosophy professor Peter Vallentyne, “Liberalism comes in two broad forms. Classical liberalism emphasizes the importance of individual liberty and contemporary (or welfare) liberalism tends to emphasize some kind of material equality.” In Europe, the term “liberalism” is closer to the economic outlook of American economic conservatives. According to Harry Girvetz and Minoque Kenneth “contemporary liberalism has come to represent different things to Americans and Europeans: In the United States it is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal program of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whereas in Europe liberals are more commonly conservative in their political and economic outlook”. In the United States, “liberalism” is most often used in the sense of social liberalism, which supports some regulation of business and other economic interventionism which they believe to be in the public interest. A philosophy holding a position in accordance with Scottish pioneer of political economy Adam Smith, that laissez-faire economics will bring about a spontaneous order or an invisible hand that benefits the society, is referred to as “classical liberalism.”, of which US-style libertarianism may be considered an extreme example.
Liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and rejects many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, established religion, and economic protectionism. Instead, it founds itself on the assumption of the equal dignity and worth of individuals. Modern liberal thought originated in and influenced the politics of The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. The first modern liberal state was the United States of America, founded on the principle that “all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; based on the writings of English philosopher John Locke, who expressed that “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” “that to insure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Yoni #2
You are clueless about the Islamic treatment of Jews and the agenda that the Arab nations are fostering. Listen with both ears to Imans, speeches at Mosques and see the demos and rallies against Pro-Israel supporters on the college campuses.
This AINT no run of the mill housing discrimination, have these Arabs try to rent/buy housing in any frum neighborhood and see the neighbors reactions. Arab citizens allegiances are to the Arab world not to democratic Israeli culture.
Liberals are liberals until that get beaten up. Many rich Telaviv people were glad to give up Gush Katif. Now let them give their villas back to the arabs and see how liberal they really really are
in 5765 Harav Shteinman signed:http://www.kipa.co.il/now/show.asp?id=41563
we are talking about a self-established ghetto, to protect ruchniyus & gashmiyos, and to escape danger of destruction. Justlike in an army base you cannot live if your not one of them. EY is a safe zone for them to keep out. you want equality go live in brussels and see if the moslfascist live you bshalom or lshalom.
BS”D
One little problem. The Arabs act like Nazis and would outdo the Nazis given even a little chance. The Jews remain the Jews.
ANY Jewish car driving through an Arab area is met with a mini Kristallnacht.
zionflag – Your knowledge has serious gaps, and your logic is twisted.
1.- What do you mean by Islamic? Is Egypt an “Islamic” state? Saudi Arabia? Do you think “Islamic” is synonomous with “Arab?” Iran is an Islamic State – but not Arab. The existential threat is from Islamic Jihadist movements and from Iran – not “all Arabs” and not “all Muslims.”
2. Today the primary victims of Islamic terror are other Muslims, who are being killed by the hundreds virtually weekly by suicide bombings in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Europeans come next – not Jews and not Americans or Israelis.
3. Relatively few Jews are today mistreated “by Islam” – we simply don’t live in the same places – and Israeli security has done a rather effective job of protecting Yidden in Eretz Yisroel.
4. How does prohibiting indiginous Arab, Israeli citizens, from living in Israeli towns protect anybody from Islamic Jihadist and Iranian antisemitism and threats? You are engaged in very flimsy guilt by association – the only association is being Muslim.
A600KiloBear – I don’t think you would say that if you had been raised by family who lived through Kristalnacht. State terror is uniquely frightening. You cannot equate getting beaten by hoodlums with getting beaten by officers of the State. Too many people cheapen the Churban Europe by equating Naziism with any and all sorts of lesser evils…don’t join them
Where is this a problem? Are Arabs really buying up land in Jewish neighborhoods? Can they even afford to? And the ones that do try and buy land there, are they the terrorists we are afraid of? Why would the Arabs want to live with us. I don’t think many Jews are trying to live in Arab areas. So why is this being done now? If we want to keep Arabs out just outbid them for rental properties! Also mepnei darchei shalom it seems to me that publicizing this issue, regardless of its halachic merits, is a bad idea.
YonasonW is correct.
And the bigotry shown here is disgusting. Some Israeli Arabs have served in the IDF, protecting us, yet it is assumed that any non-Jew is evil. The collective judgement described here is reminiscent of the bigotry that used to be directed towards Jews.
I dont understad something. According to Halacha, Jews can’t rent/sell land in Israel to non-Jews. Oviously, some Jews are renting/selling land to non-Jews. So some rabbis are publishing a letter to remind people of the Halacha. And then some secular people who didnt even know this Halacha (or pretended not to) decided to make a stink about it because it rubs them the wrong way. What does this have to do with safety and terrorism?
A600KiloBear – Unrelated to anything, your logon (sue of Kilo and Bear) ID leads me to ask you whether you were in ASW in the the Navy?
charliehall and yonasan:
most of the arabs/muslims in the world hate us and desire nothing more than to see us perish. yonasan, you mentioned that israeli security does a good job protecting us (w/ the aid of Hashem of course). however, w/o them thwarting many attacks the causalities would chas v’shalom mount. these “moderate” arabs would severely beat if not kill a jew if he/she were to even walk in their neighborhoods. don’t pretend that you understand the situation. i live in israel and see how much the arabs want to destroy us.
BS”D
Arab terror is “religion” and “supra-nation” sponsored terror and it is every bit as bad as what the Nazis did, mitigated only by the fact that the Arabs don’t have any real power over Jews except that which they have garnered by threat and force (like thugs who control neighborhoods where no decent human being dare enter).
The only bigotry here is that of the ma yoffis left crowd against Jews who want to make sure that Jewish physical and spiritual life is preserved.
No Israeli Arab has ever served in the IDF. You mean Bedouins and Druze. Bedouins create a lot of problems in the Negev and all the service in the world does NOT metaher a sheretz (well, it does in the Zionist religion, which, like Reform, is a diseased branch that sprouted from rebellion against Torah).
No, no navy background here.
Notice that the signatures of the Gedolai HaDor are conspicuously absent from this ban.
(#9 – The ban that R’ Shteinman signed was against permanently selling land in E”Y to goyim, which is clearly assur – this ban is even against renting.)
YonasonW:
First of all, kudos to you for remaining calm and intellectual time and time again in the face of opponents that didn’t quite manage to do so.
That said, I don’t think the idea behind this ban is to make the larger chareidi community safer as much as it is to ensure that the communities remains jewish in nature. So even if some commentors here think every arab is a security threat, the Rabbonim who signed this ban do not necessarily think so.