Rabbi Metzger: Boycott Neturei Karta participants of Iran conference
In dramatic, unusual step, Israel’s chief rabbi calls on world rabbis to deny Neturei Karta representatives who attended Holocaust denial conference, says ‘They betrayed the Jewish people, their heritage, disgraced the Shoah, desecrated its memory’
“They betrayed the Jewish people and their heritage and particularly disgraced the Shoah and desecrated its memory. They tried to stain the Jewish people, who shy away from this low behavior, with their shameful behavior,” Metzger said.
The chief rabbi called on all communities in Israel and around the world to reinforce the memory of the Holocaust amongst their community members. This dramatic step was significant because boycotts are rarely done, and only as a last resort.
According to Jewish law, only a court with a panel of at least three rabbinical judges has the power to start a boycott. Rabbi Metzger’s spokesman Arik Eliovitz told Ynet that the rabbi had “made the call on his own with out other rabbis”.
Israel Hirsch, a member of Neturei Karta living in the Meah Shaarim neighborhood of Jerusalem, who attended the conference explained, "The haredim who attended the conference for investigating the Holocaust in Iran share a common platform with Ahmadinejad when it comes to the so-called myth the Zionist movement created around the Holocaust.
"They wanted to make it clear in Tehran that Zionism uses the Holocaust as an excuse for the existence of the Zionist state in the Land of Israel," he said.
Hirsch continued, "Because the UN agreed to establish a state because of the Holocaust, the Iranians are claiming something very logical. They aren't saying that there wasn't a Holocaust, but who perpetrated the Holocaust? The Nazis, the Germans. So they should at least pay compensation to the Jewish nation and establish a Jewish state within Germany and not within the land of Israel, which belongs to the Palestinians."
Israel’s former chief rabbi, current Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau did not buy the explanations of the Jews who attended the conference.
“It is something completely insane. If it’s possible that there is any Jew, who for some reason or another can support a Holocaust denier in a generation where people with numbers tattooed on their arms are still among us – it’s an insanity that has no justification and no explanation,” he concluded.
