Yad Vashem Rebukes Rabbis : What Chutzpah!!!

[muman613]

It is odd that the Jewish Holocaust Memorial center has come out with a statement rebuking the 300 Rabbis who forbid the selling of Jewish property to non-Jews. It is odd because the purpose of the center is to continue the memory of the Holocaust, thus they are in the holocaust business, and have very little to do with Judaism. How can they even begin to argue with the Rabbis concerning whether it is right for the Jewish people? Does Yad Vashem have even one Rabbi on its staff? I am beginning to lose any respect I had for Yad Vashem when they come out against some of the greatest Rabbis we have today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/yad-vashem-against-extremist-rabbis

Yad Vashem, Israel's esteemed holocaust memorial centre, today harshly rebuked a growing number of rabbis forbidding the rental or sale of property to non-Jews, saying it was an "egregious blow to the values of our lives as Jews and human beings in a democratic state".

The prohibition, widely seen as being aimed against Israel's Arab population, has caused a backlash, which includes calls for publicly funded rabbis to be sacked and condemnation from Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.

What is extremely perplexing is that the Arabs have a LAW which is enforced in the PA where an arab who sells to a Jew is given the DEATH PENALTY and yet nobody in the Israeli government says BOO...

[mord]

Yad Vashem has no business interfering

[Yaakov Mendel]

Their reaction shows they have a leftist mentality. It is ironic that an institution supposed to preserve the memory of the Shoah stands against a statement that should be supported by any Jew who cares about the survival of the Jewish people on its land.

[Yaakov Mendel]

Not surprisingly, the Rabbis' statement is also condemned by the usual Yehudonim : Shimon Persky, the ADL and, of course, Netanyoyo, whose rationale against the Rabbis is that the Torah teaches Jews to “love the stranger.”  Sure, the Torah teaches us to love Amalek !

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

"stranger" refers to converts  (gerim , the ger toshav), but the leftists twist the Torah to their purposes.

[muman613]

I translate it as 'Love your neighbor" not "stranger".

http://www.inner.org/responsa/leter1/resp22.htm

Q: In one of your articles you quote the verse, "and you shall love your neighbor (fellow Jew) as yourself."

Why is it necessary to add the parenthetical comment that one's neighbor means one's fellow Jew? Why can't one take the verse at face value and say, "I shall love my neighbor as myself"--period--without restricting the mitzvah in a parochial sense? If anything, the dictum "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" should be interpreted to mean not just one's fellow Jews, but all Humanity regardless of spiritual path, and indeed all living things and all of Creation itself.

Thank You,

A: The Hebrew of the Torah is not easily translatable. The customary translation of veahavta l'reyacha kamocha--"you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18)--seems to imply that all "neighbors," regardless of creed, are to be loved equally. This implication, based upon the inadequate translation of reyacha, is not accurate.

First let us observe the context in which the above phrase appears in the Torah: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart?You shall not take revenge or feel resentment against the children of your people, you shall love your companion [reyacha] as yourself." From this it is clear that "your companion" refers to the same category as "your brother" and "the children of your people," all explicitly referring to one's fellow Jew.

Thus we see that in the Torah, the Hebrew word reyacha explicitly means "your fellow Jew." It does not refer to anyone outside the Jewish faith. "Neighbor" is not an accurate translation for the word reyacha. The Hebrew word for "neighbor" is shachen. The Hebrew word reyah means "a very close companion". Sometimes it is used to mean "spouse". Just as a Jewish soul is commanded to unite in marriage only with another Jewish soul, so there is also an explicit commandment in the Torah that a very close friendship and companionship with another should be established only with someone referred to as reyah. A Jew is not allowed to develop a very close relationship with a non-Jew for the simple reason that the non-Jew's faulty faith system might have negative influence on the Jew.

The Jew is commanded to respect all human beings. The Torah prohibits any negative behavior toward a non-Jew, so long as he is not an enemy. He is instructed, however, not to become too close a companion to him. Thus the above verse, veahavta l'reyacha kamocha, "You shall love your neighbor as your self", does not imply a universal neighbor. To be honest with the text, the parenthetical "a fellow Jew" must appear.
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[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

someone should send that to bibi and yad vashem.

[muman613]

someone should send that to bibi and yad vashem.

Yes, although I suspect it would fall on deaf ears... Those who reject the Torah yet attempt to justify their actions using some Torah concepts usually end up failing. A wise man studies the Torah, the sages, and other sources before rendering an opinion on matters of Torah. Obviously Bibi and Vad Yashem have not been reading their Torah...

[muman613]

News reports that 2 Rabbis have backed down from their pronouncement due to pressure from the government.

Shame on the government for shaming the Rabbis like this.

Next thing we will read is that all Rabbis will be exiled from Israel by the wicked government.

Is the end of Israel near?

Didn't we learn anything from the story of Channukah?

[muman613]

UPDATE

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/141075

Rabbis May Draft 'Softer' Decree Regarding Houses for Arabs
by Gil Ronen

Two hundred and fifty rabbis have reportedly joined fifty others who signed a Halachic (Jewish-legal) decree forbidding Jews to sell or rent out homes to Arabs. The signatories include dozens of city and community rabbis who are employed by the state.

The Halachic decree comes in the wake of years in which Arabs have flooded Jewish neighborhoods and towns, changing the demographic status quo and often terrorizing the local Jews, while violently expelling any Jew who attempts to live in Arab villages.
 
The Arab influx is accompanied by deliberate buy-ups of land by foreign Arabs. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority broadcasts target Arab citizens of Israel and incite them against the state as part of the PA's war on Israel.
 
Rabbi Chaim Druckman, Head of the Bnei Akiva Yeshivas, has expressed support for the spirit of the rabbis' decree while not signing it himself. He reportedly is hammering out a softer version of the decree, that will refrain from explicitly forbidding sale to Arabs.
 
Liberal and leftist elements in Israel are in an uproar over the decree, and claim that it constitutes racism. Attorney-General Yehudah Weinstein said Thursday that he is looking into the possible 'criminal aspects' of the letter, after MK Ilan Gilon of Meretz asked him to. He is not expected to prosecute the rabbis, however.
 
President Shimon Peres attacked the rabbis for bringing about “a fundamental moral crisis in the State of Israel regarding the essence and content of the state as a Jewish and democratic one.”
 
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also came out against the decree. “How would we feel if they said not to sell apartments to Jews?” he asked rhetorically. 
 
About 20 residents of the community of Meitar in the Negev held a protest outside the home of Rabbi Moshe Bigel, the community's rabbi, after he signed the decree. Their spokesman compared the decree to anti-Semitic decrees in foreign lands. Interviewed on Channel 1 TV, Bigel stood behind his decision to sign the decree. He noted, however, that it expressed his opinion as a rabbi, but was not intended to express the position of his community.
 
Rabbi Dov Shalom Wolpe of Our Land of Israel told the TV reporter that he would happily be “the first to go to jail” over the matter.

[The proud Jew]

That means a total of 300 rabbis supported the original plan. Baruch hashem. It shows that the rabbinot and the ppl know that kahane was right and the tzadick was talking about this problem in the 60's.