Safed rabbi says struggle to keep the city Jewish moving forward
Chief Rabbi of Safed's latest statement follows his earlier call for Jews not to sell or rent homes to non-Jews.
By Eli AshkenaziThe chief rabbi of Safed issued a statement this week proclaiming that efforts to keep the city Jewish are beginning to progress and must be widened, though he also added a plea for non-violence in the "struggle."
"The struggle to preserve the special character of the city of Safed is beginning to bear fruit here and everywhere in the country and it is necessary to continue with this here. It has not stopped with one call and a rabbinical ruling," wrote Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed, in a statement he issued this week under the heading "Continuation of the Rabbis' Letter on the Issue of Selling Apartments to Gentiles."
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Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu |
| Photo by: Archive: Lior Mizrahi / BauBau |
The official letter follows an earlier one in which Eliyahu called for Jews not to sell or rent homes to non-Jews. Racial tensions have risen in recent months with Arab students in the city reporting being attacked and having their property vandalized, including two cars which were torched last month outside the city's academic college. Anti-Arab posters have also been put up in the city.
In his letter, Eliyahu stressed that "this struggle has nothing to do with racism and hatred. It is aimed in its entirety only at preserving our state as Jewish."
Eliyahu also called for activists to refrian from violence.
"This struggle must not spill over into violence, which is both negative and interferes with the struggle," he said. "It is possible to win and it is necessary to win without violence. ... It is necessary to see this struggle as action completing the Law of Return and the declaration of a Jewish state, as a continuation of the redemption of lands by the founders of the state and as action completing the government's decision on Judaizing the Galilee."
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why you gentiles do not understand?
Can the Gentiles(Goym) do the same and keep their countries pure Gentiles?
"A sheynem dank myn Rebe", - what is "yidishkeyt" without "hokhme"? It's an ostrich that has buried its head in the sand.
I remember protests in Borrowdale, Salisbury, Rhodesia, by whites wanting the neighbourhood to remain white. It did not work in Rhodesia 40 years ago and it will not work in Israel today.
Jews are just fighting to exist, do not forget the past. Respect the rabbi.
He is a primitive tribal caveman. That is to be expected from those of his ilk, but what is really tragic is the vast number of Jews in Israel and the diaspora who think he is an exemplary Jew and completely justified. Thank God, there are also those who feel him and his racist ilk to be anathema and a disgrace to Judaism. ut this caveman of Safed is sadly one among many of those whho are skullcapped and snooded.
I guess it was naive and childlike to expect that a rabbi steeped in Torah would necessarily have a great deal of wisdom, but that was always somehow the default position. But people like Eliyahu changed the default position from assuming they're sages to assuming that they're narrow minded bigots who would have benefited greatly from less Torah and more humanistic, secular studies. It sure argues for a mandatory and rigorous secular studies program for Yeshivas.
Obviously rabbi underestimated the power of lefty cry and whine sellouts.
"this struggle has nothing to do with racism and hatred. It is aimed in its entirety only at preserving our state as Jewish." (huh?)
Just how long will it be before the good rabbis issue edicts against renting or selling to the wrong sort of Jew? Prehaps its time for Israel to actually define who is a 'Jew'.
Pathetic, sad, misguided, and a "valid" reason for some to cry out against Judaism. Wrap this in any cloak you like, its still bigotry and hatred, something the Jewish community in the US has stood actively against to the point of death. A true crying shame.
Pathetic, sad, misguided, and a "valid" reason for some to cry out against Judaism. Wrap this in any cloak you like, its still bigotry and hatred, something the Jewish community in the US has stood actively against to the point of death. A true crying shame.
with human rights for Palestinian Christians, to have the freedom to worship in Jerusalem?
Says a lot about a society when its religious leaders openly preach prejudice.
If the palestinians can get a Jew free state then the Jewish state should be entitled to have a moslem free state.
Circa 1880's when Baptist ministerin the south used to teach the Jim Corwe laws . At least in America they used to preach equal but seperate. In Israel it is unequal and non existent and preferably transfered and eliminated.
=There isn't a mosque in all of the Judea, Samaria or Gaza whose religious leaders don't preach hate