Tel Aviv Rabbis: Renting apartments to foreign workers violates Jewish law

the Rabbis are singling out illegal Sudanese migrants, many of whom are not even Sudanese but merely claim to be so, sucking sympathies from the Darfur situation (what have YOU done about Darfur's very real extermination?). Many of these people are Nigerian, though even that is not entirely certain as most burn all evidence of their nationalities while in Sinai. These people are not what you would want in your neighbourhoods. They are dishonest, racist, many of them are criminals. That they would take advantage of the real Sudanese plight to further their own ecoomic gains says it all. The real racism I see here is amongst the talkbackers who jump at any opportunity, no matter how misinformed they are, to call Israelis racists, zenophobes, chauvinists, etc. What have you done in your own hometown to combat these ugly manifestations of humanity that you have the right to point your finger across the world?

Lets stop treating illegals as some kind of victims of Israeli cruelty they are criminals. They have no right to be in this country and every last one of them should be deported with or without children. As long as they are not refugees in fear of their lives they should be deported. If we stop renting to illegals the word will spread abroad and they won't be so quick to come to israel. Make things harder for them to stay in Israel and threaten deportation then they will move on go to Egypt or Jordan. All countries fight against illegal immigration and Israel should not be treated as a country that welcomes everybody with open arms and in this case the rabbis are right weather its for jewish law or just upholding the national law.

When did rabbis started to take decisions instead of parliament and laws in Israel. Isn't it a secular democracy?

I can understand why there would be an objection to people providing housing for illegal foreign workers. I am a bit confused by the term infiltrator though. Does infiltrator mean someone who is not of the Jewish faith , someone who has different cultural standards or someone of another race?

What ever happened to the commandment not to oppose the stranger, because "you were strangers in Egypt?" Don't know what Jewish law these guys are following.

I rent to Phd students. I ask for proof of being in the country legally. No proof, no lease. I don't want to one day not receive the rent payment and discover the apartment has been sitting empty for a month because the person got deported and didn't tell me. Does that make me a racist against Phd candidates?

So many similarities. You guys are cousins and should kiss and make up.

i find it a lot more problematic that so many apartments sit empty for 50 weeks a year because some schmuck from london or new york doesn't want to pay for a hotel room when he visits on holidays. this artificially inflates real estate prices for the real zionists who actually live here. why can't these rabbis issue a 'fatwa' on that?

So, Am I to understand, evicting the Jews from the Arab countries is justified. After all, that could change the character of the desert.

Tel Aviv, Shame on you! Tel Aviv residents: if you ever have to foreign lands as foreign workers, don't expect local residents to rent you their apartments! The foreign workers are good enough to work for you, but they are not good enough to be your neighbours? Hospitality, any one?

Rabbis who sign xenophibic fatwas, rabbis who think discriminating against less religious girls in Immanuel is good, and rabbis who run nationalist yeshivas on the West Bank, deserve no respect. Rabbis who protect Palistinian farmers from settler violence, rabbis who work to build peace, the Jewish state and the Palastinain state, rabbis who look upon religion as a font of wisdom and not a license to exercise some of humanity's nastier traits, are to be looked on with awe. The simple title of Rabbi does not by itself suggest one type or the other no more than the title parish priest tells you whether the bearer is a saint or the bearer is leading an anti-semitic pogrom from some pulpit in Poland. People need to be judged on their own individual merits, and anyone who thinks that conferring a title of rabbi, priest, mullah or other cleric automatically makes its bearer knowledgable, wise and worthy needs to get over their disappointment and come into the real world.

They are acting according to precept of Jewish law!!!

Who elected these phony-baloney rabbis to speak for the rest of us? Who empowered them?

This one beats Certified Kosher Water and Kosher Salt...If Israeli companies need to import foreing workers,they should provide lodgings for them...

Why don't these rabbis tell all the useless ultra-orthodox men to work instead of telling them to waste their time protesting parking lots? Don't take it out on people trying to improve their lives and willing to do hard work.

Torah taught me to honor, assist and show compassion to the dtanger in our land. The Holocaust taught me to defend the helpless and the weak and the stateless victims of racism and the Iraeli Palestinian conflict has taught me to reach out and feel the pain and humanity of my enemy. These rabbis have nothing to do with the spiritual generosity of Judaism. What they preach is an abomination.

A jew should not use Torah to empower themselves over other people to do evil against them. And here we see 100.000 religious jews protesting against some defenceless sepharadic girls and now a decree against foreigners who actually make sure that their life are of a better standard? Israel needs to take these horrible people to court and fine them accordingly to their discrimination

Are they really rabbis,the jewish religion today is being misused and abused by the so called rabbis.let anyone of the idiots show me a single vise from the torah/Telmon to support their so call edict.

Are the very same people who hire illegals and pay them slave wages instead of hiring Jews or paying a living wage. We want these workers to do our dirty work, but we deny them basic housing and decency? That is not Jewish at all.

Truly sickening.

Akin to racism. This is the ugly side of "religion" and it has no place in a democratic society. Judiasm is self-destructing.

כאזרח מכם יהיה לכם הגר הגר אתכם ואהבת לו כמוך כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים אני יהוה אלהיכם׃ The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. and this You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, having been strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:9.

Who cares if it is racism? The mishna, the second holy book of the Jews (Karaites only have Torah, Jews have mishna) says in tractate Eduyot if I remember well that it is indeed forbidden to rent a house to a Gentile in the very Eretz Yisrael, however not a field. As long as it's forbidden for Jews from the source, who cares the consequences? Is Israel a Jewish state or not?

The source of the problems are the shameful disinterest and apathy show foreign workers by Tel Aviv and the government. For the moment, concerning only the foreign workers here legally, the government allows corrupt recruitment agencies to charge up to ten of thousands of dollars for a foreign worker to come to work in jobs most Israelis do not want. By local standards hey are paid very low wages and often treated without respect or any semblance of fair play. Tel Aviv does very little to control the many slum lords who provide the workers with dormitories not fit for dogs and little in the place of normal humanitarian services. And now we have xenophobic and terribly ignorant Rabbis adding their sins to the sins of their terribly ignorant faithful. Judaism, as practiced by these so called holy men, is a disgrace and hymn to an unknown god.

having the pope publicly state that no good Christian should rent or sell to a Jew? This is the problem with the world, the spread of these semitic religion (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) which are COMPLETELY intolerant, primitive and tribal. Nothing good in terms of personal faith and tolerance has come from this region. Compare this to Buddhism or even polytheism which was far more tolerant of others than the advent of this form on monotheism.

That's not racism. Illegal infiltrators should leave.

get rid of them!they are a disgrace to the whole country!I am ashamed of my own people!!!

aren't we commanded to be good to foreigners because we too were strangers in a strange land?

Israel stands as the only true democracy in the region. Are we to become a state run by religious extremists? A state where discrimination is the rule? A state that treats people based pm their religious beliefs? If so, we're not the Israel I thought we were. We live in the 21st century yet it seems our mentality isn't moving with the times. All jews don't feel the same but we do share a future. Running Israel on a religious agenda will not enhance our chances of a future of peace. So we can let the relgious right continue to bring us down or we can join the rest of the democratic world. I was raised that being Jewish meant a higher standard of tolerance and undersanding not selfshness and trying to make secular Jews feel less of a Jew because of our more liberal 21st century ideals only distances us further. We need to become one nation with justice and liberty for all!

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According to the article, the Rabbis say it is improper to rent apartments to ILLEGAL foreign workers. Why is this racism? This is upholding the law.

shame on you! You should know better! And these rabbis should be cut of their state allowances!

These are neighborhoods these people were brought up in, communities changed beyond recognition. It is a common fear, like when a very secular neighbour begins to get lot's of religious buyers. It has nothing to do with colour of skin. Communities are forever destroyed and changed very quickly. Also the stress and strain of many needy migrants does cost a community, if this burden was shared equally it would be an entirely different matter, but it is not. I do not live there but I can understand their fears and it is not racism.

Interesting article but I don't see anything in the Word of God that prohibits this. Could these rabbis please enlighten us on how they are distorting the Torah to achieve their political means?

...Obama will soon be breaking all diplomatic ties with Israel by December 2011 (those of us who are in the know), it would be in Israel's best interest to rid the country of all foreign workers and non-Jewish residents. Not only will Obama close the Israeli Embassy, he'll also close all consular offices and aliyah agencies. American Jews who want to move to Israel from that point on will have to go to a consular office in another country...if that country will allow it. Come on, kids, it's well and obvious what's about to happen. Get ready to deal with yet another mass exodus. And don't complain that you weren't warned.

It is very nice preaching self-righteousness and political correctness.....from a $800,000 home in the Savyon.

How much more racist can these Rabbis encourage Israelis to become? Please Haaretz have the courage to print the names of each and every one of the Rabbis who signed this edict so that Israelis can see which Rabbis have their true interests at heart.

I cant believe how racist Israelis are. Wake up this the 21st century Israel is going to end up as the largest ghetto in the world.

... surely not expected tp originate from the only democracy in the ME. Sad

Nice job. Yet another slander against the integrity of Judaism and its values by those who claim to uphold its highest values. Instaed of being a light unto the gentiles, Israel's religious establishment has become a cesspool, led by a rabbinate that preaches hatred, racism, contempt for the non-Jew and a religiously sanctioned scorn for anyone not like them.

I was born in a time where many things were forbidden to Jews.

Sounds that way to me. :/