THE GUARDIAN: Publicly funded municipal chiefs accused of racial incitement after signing letter in support of ultra-orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu
Dozens of Israeli rabbis today backed a call to forbid Jews to rent or sell property to Arabs in a move likely to further stoke tensions in some cities.
More than 40 municipal chief rabbis, whose salaries are paid from public funds, signed a letter in support of a ruling by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed in Upper Gallilee instructing his followers not to offer accommodation to non-Jews.
Anyone doing so, the letter said, "causes his neighbour a great loss, and his iniquity is greater than can be borne". It went on: "It is incumbent upon the seller's neighbours and acquaintances to warn and caution, first in private and then they are entitled to publish him in public, to distance themselves from him, to prevent trade from being done with him, not to have him read from the Torah and so forth until he reverses his decision that causes harm to so many people."
Following Eliyahu's earlier ruling, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who rents out rooms to three Arab students in Safed was threatened with having his house burned down and was denounced as a traitor to Judaism. >>> Harriet Sherwood | Tuesday, December 07, 2010
