Jerusalem – More than 1,000 rabbis have signed a letter urging Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to bypass Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu when he appoints the city’s new chief Sephardi rabbi.
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HAARETZ (http://bit.ly/1mNdgVJ) reports that, in their letter, the rabbis expressed to Barkat that the appointment of Rabbi Eliyahu will “send a message of divisiveness and intolerance.”
The letter states that Eliyahu has a long history of anti-Arab behavior, including charges that he “made a halakhic ruling barring Jews from renting apartments to Arabs, opposed military service for women, and characterized Arabs and Muslims in racist and humiliating terms.”
The letter also noted that the attorney general has called Eliyahu’s candidacy for chief rabbi “inappropriate.”
shows these other rabbis are afraid and not qualified for office or their title
The number of these holy Rabbis is staggering what is the ratio of physicians to the population
Who are these ‘thousand Rabbis’, pray tell!
What’s the problem?
Eliyahu has shown himself over and over again to be a hateful and racist individual who will only further exacerbate the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. We’ve already had years of a leading Sefardeshe rav who often made really dumb statements without thinking of the implications of his words. We don’t need another intolerant and blatantly anti-arab chief rav.
how many were ORTHODOX ?
1000 ferd. 1000 behaymas. 1000 reform rabbis.
we need as a strong leader as Chacham Ovadia he was never afraid to speak the truth and bring achdut among Sephardi and Ashkanazim.
1,000 rabbis signing…that’s 10 men with second wives…
1,000 hacks signed. Rabbi Eliyahu is a fantastic choice. I love how any principled man is coined “racist”. These 1,000 so called rabbis are the racists.
if all these rabbis hate him, he must have some merit
According to Haaretz:
“Prominent among the rabbis signing the letter were Reform Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Conservative Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, liberal Orthodox Rabbi Asher Lopatin, Reconstructionist Rabbi Deborah Waxman and Rabbi Brian Lurie, president of the New Israel Fund.”
yeah, can we really rely upon these protesting rabbis for spiritual guidance in selection of a good rabbi? ha?