Shalom chevre. I am writing today out of grave concern for the state of Israeli Jewry in its relationship to our non-Jewish fellow citizens.
Last week, one of Israel’s leading rabbis, David Batzri, came under investigation for inciting racial hatred against Arabs, making statements which should shake any conscious Jew to the core of their being:
You cannot mix pure with impure. Of course we have to keep apart from all the other nations. You must stand in the breach and prevent this. One cannot mix light with darkness. The people of Israel are pure. The Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil plague, an evil Satan, an evil pestilence.
What heinous act could have possibly led a man of Rav Batzri’s stature to make such irresponsible remarks? No more than the opening of a joint Arab-Jewish day school in Jerusalem.
In other disturbing news, on Purim, here in Jerusalem, several Hareidim attempted to beat two Arab taxi drivers without provocation.
And then the most shocking news — a survey released late last week shows that a majority of Israeli Jews support racial segregation, the number in favor rising sharply in the most religious communities.
As tensions heat up here in Israel, and abroad in North American and European Jewish communities which identify strongly with Israel, direct action becomes necessary to stem the tide of such hatred.
Today I am writing to ask the Jewish educators and scholars who frequent this site to send to me as much information as you have available on rabbinic and halakhic positions concerning racism to be compiled and presented on Radical Torah and later published as a pamphlet in both Hebrew and English.
We have begun assembling information from Radical Torah’s regular contributors, but I wanted to open the floor to everyone who may have knowledge to share on this subject.
If you have any information relevant to this issue, please contact us.
Comment (1)
I don’t see how this is racism… maybe ethnocentrism, which is a little different. There are Jews that consist of many different “races” (Sephardim, Mizrachim, Ashkenazim, Indian Bnei Menashe, Ethiopian Beta Israel etc.) living in Israel that have come from all over the Exile - I do no think that what has been called for is a separation of races but rather a separation from an enemy that openly calls for the downfall of the State of Israel. This is an antagonistic attitude towards a cultural disposition not a call to “racial purity” but rather spiritual purity [Baruch HaMavdil, see Havdallah] the means of which is separating from an evil neighbor [See Pirkei Avos 1:7]. I do not blame the average citizen for unfortunately assuming the worst of his neighbor that has elected Hamas to govern the PA, and who’s representatives in the Knesset are now rallying under an Islamist message in order to get re-elected. The idea that we should not have open arms towards a hostile population is not racist, to do so would be suicidal. I do not think you will find any credible Rav who will say “racism is mutar” including those whose statements were quoted above. What is being presented here as racism dilutes the connotation of the word and opens it up to a broader interpretation than what it really is - that is to say ‘racism = belief in one race being superior to another’, whilst trying to say that a Jew being against an Arab is racism despite the fact that as Jews were are not “racially homogenous”. In the statement above it has been said “the Arabs are a nation of donkeys”… emphasis on the word NATION. The concept of a nation is not dependant upon race, it can be one factor among many… but a national ethos that is antithetical and opposed to the presence of a Jew in the Land of Israel is what is being attacked here. I find it rather interesting who the government chooses to investigate in regards to this issue… why not party chairman Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour of the Arab Balad party who said that Israel should be replaced by an Islamic state (in which Jews would be considered dhimmi [second class, no rights citizens] under the laws of Sharia)?