The following is a Ynet article: A few months after the publication of a rabbis’ petition calling to avoid renting apartments in Tel Aviv to African immigrants, rabbis in Bnei Brak issue a similar halachic ruling Monday, prohibiting residents to rent out apartments in the religious city and its surroundings to African refugees and illegal immigrants at large.
According to the halachic ruling, signed by six leading rabbis from the city’s haredi sector, “This appeal is against a horrible act of lawlessness, by which apartment owners rent their property to illegal immigrants etc’. This phenomenon has grown into gigantic proportions, and nowadays the situation is intolerable,” it read.
“It is not only a general nuisance but leads to more serious problems. Families have already appealed to us over fears they have for their children”, stated the law which included a clear warning: “Those who rent out the apartments (to the immigrants) take responsibility for spiritual consequences on their heads be it”.
One of the signatories, Pardes Katz Rabbi Menashe Zelicha, told Ynet: “The Sudanese refugees have become a great nuisance for the residents. Some residents felt uncomfortable in Tel Aviv, where the secular public has more access to the media. (The public) expressed resentment and made them feel unwanted, so one of them came here and called over all his friends.”
Rabbi Zelicha claimed that “if it was only two or three Sudanese, then they would not have been noticed. But this is a neighborhood with 40,000 residents, and we’re talking about a few thousand (refugees). They walk around bored, gather on street corners and drink beer. Yeshiva students turned to me and said they were scared to walk on the streets at night; it is a spiritual danger, and Pardes Katz has turned into Sudan.”
The neighborhood’s rabbi also lamented that one of the residents turned to him, complaining that a few of the refugees harassed his daughter: “It spoils the neighborhood’s spirituality. Our young guys are drawn to them, and go speak with them. We are not against the Sudanese; the government must take care of them – either by building them their own neighborhoods, or by deporting them,” Zelicha argued.
Bnei Brak City Council member Gedalyahu Ben Shimon noted that the refugees and illegal workers are the ones suffering injustice. “The State doesn’t give them a respectable place, and allows them to assimilate in the haredi public – which is known to be conservative and isolates itself from the street.
“We don’t want assimilation inside haredi communities. During last Yom Kippur we noticed many foreign workers sitting around, smoking hookahs and drinking beers on the main street, which is usually shut on this day,” Ben Shimon added.
The councilman stressed that this sort of behavior was disrespectful toward the haredi public. “There isn’t a single Jew that would agree to desecrate this holiday, which is so important to the Jewish people. They didn’t even know it was a day of complete rest, and thought people were yelling at them for no reason.
“The State needs to rehabilitate them in welfare and education institutions. Currently, their human dignity is being ridiculed, because they are good and nice people. The haredi public knows how to accept and love the other, but when it’s not right – it’s just not right,” he said.
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(Source: Ynet)
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22 Responses
why are sundanese coming to EY?
It always amazes me how the lunacy in America and the lunacy in Eretz Yisrael mirror each other.
Here we have big problems with illegal border crossers that the government does not deal with appropriately, – in Israel the same thing.
The U.S. troops are given ridiculous rules of engagement with the yishmaeli enemy in Iraq and Aghanistan, – In Israel the same thing.
In the U.S. the Republican party of 2010 has become the Democrat party of 1960 and the “tea-party”ers are the Republicans. In Israel the Likud of today is the Labor of 1960, and the Ichud l’eumi is the old Likud.
and why are African refugees any worse (or better) than, say, Palestinian Muslims, or Gay hilonim, or goyim in general?
Though allowing non-Jews into Eretz Yisrael, while excluding Palestinians who fled during the 20th century, makes Israel look silly, and undermines the argument that being a Jewish state was Israel’s raison d’etre.
#1,
Where have you been the past few years? They are fleeing from genocide! And just as the world turned its back on Jews during the 1940s, we are being urged to turn our back on others in the same predicament. Shame!
“The chareidi public knows how to accept and love the other…” — oh,really?
Akuperma, again these evil Zionists?
I second Charliehall (#4) – And add this: those Yidden with opinions like those expressed here by apukerma and mark levin should have empaththy for people who would support bans on renting to religious Jews, or Jews in general – you are landsmen with a shared social problem – and a religious establishment that issues such a ban should find kindship in the Apartheid era Afrikaner church in South Africa.
YonasanW, do you accept the mitsva of mechias Amaleik?
I second the daas of Reb Chaim , “do not employ Arabs”, and Rav S. Eliyahu, “Do not rent to Arabs in Safed or anywhere else”.
Duh?
Hasn’t anyone heard of Lo Tichaneim?
mdd: mechias Amaleik is too radical a halacha for a YonasonW.
If someone doesn’t want Yidden in their neighborhood, I am more than happy to keep out.
Gimme a break Charlie! There is only one Jewish State in the world, and with a population of about 5.5 million. Let some other country take them in. If it were up to all the bleeding heart liberals we wouldn’t even be a Jewish majority in our own country!
What’s going to happen when someone wants to make more money in rent, so instead of renting to an avreich they rent to working immigrants? Will they be personally harmed? Their property damaged by thugs? Will the other residents of the apartment spit, fight, or harass the immigrants?
I hope no D’Oreisa Lav is broken to enforce this rabbinic decree. If a rabbi said it was assur to buy a german car does it give anyone the right to scratch it?
Mechias Amalek, Nos 8 and 11? How twisted. Who exactly is Amalek? All Goyim; Africans? Liberals? Constitutional historians? Ner Yisrael? RIETS? Anyone or anything who doesn’t subscribe to your insular fear of everthing not so right wing it’s glued to the right wall?
Re LemonySnicket (#12)
If it weren’t for “..all the bleeding heart liberals we wouldn’t…” have the freedom for you zealots to spew your nourishkeit, or to enjoy your early Shabbos afternoons free from officially sanctioned pressures to keep you working on Frioday afternoons. You have it so good precisely because of “…bleeding heart liberals…”
But, to paraphrase “my friend,” maybe Hakoras HaTov is too philosophical an inyan for some of you.
We were just the ones running away, this is sick
YonasonW, the very same liberals that gave us right to work are now screaming islamophobia to those who oppose a mosque in lower Manhattan.
There is nothing wrong with a rov to prohibit it’s members from renting to illegals some of whom have scrawled swastikas on shuls in Israel. And who is to say that all of those from the Sudan are innocent victims? There are jihadists who hate Jews and slaughter Christians who would love nothing more than to enter Israel to wage Jihad on Jewish soil. I would say YonasonW that before you slam the right wing, remember who was behind the charges that put Rubashkin in jail; the left wing that you defend.
YonosanW, Amalek is Amalek. According to you, it’s racism just like in south africa.
On the other hand, myfriend, YonasanW has a point: the Jews have suffered unfair persecution and prejudice. you talk the way you talk, because you are comfortable in your frum neighborhood. Imagine, coming to a country where no locals would rent to a Jew or hire one.
But yonasanW, we take direction from the Torah and not from the Left or the Right.
#6 – admitting non-Jewish immigrants, with no connection to Jews or Eretz Yisrael (and I’m not thinking about such as granting asylum in the 1950s to anti-Nazi Germans, that’s a different issue), makes the zionists look very hypocritical.
The zionist argument is that the Jews are the true owners of Eretz Yisrael (no disagreement from anyone here). The Palestinians had possession for over a thousand years. True owner can reclaim property from the finder (they stole it from the Romans, not from us), but what right does a third party come in are claim a share of the possession. It belongs either to the true owner, or the finder.
The Sudanese are losers in a Muslim civil war. While it might be a good idea to encourage the enemies of my enemies, there is no basis to argue that an overall policy of excluding goyim (or frei Jews) from frum neighborhoods should bend to accomodate Muslim dissidents.
BTW, these Sudanese are Christians, I think.
Akuperma, ridiculous. These people are there illegaly,fleeing from the persecution. They do not threaten Yidden or the the Jewish character of Israel. Officially letting in a huge amount of hostile Palestinians is obviously different. Stop with your Brisker ma’asos.