Mazuz asked to investigate rabbis forbidding lease to Arabs
Center for fighting racism urges Mazuz to investigate Bnei Brak's senior rabbis forbidding leasing apartments to Arabs, says announcement encourages persecution of Arabs
Wednesday morning the center for fighting racism sent an urgent letter to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz following Ynet's story on Tuesday on senior rabbis in the town of Bnei Brak calling on the citizens not to rent homes to Arabs.
The letter stated that "Mazuz must order the police to open an investigation against Bnei Brak's senior rabbis, who forbid leasing apartments to Arabs."
The center claims that the rabbis' announcement is against the law that prohibits racist inciting publicity, and expressed shock at the announcement published.
The letter, headed "Very urgent" said that "there is no doubt that these announcements are dangerous, racist and shameful. They also convey a message that encourages a hostile attitude and persecution and humiliation of Arab citizens. A lack of immediate and serious action against these rabbis will lead to the Arab citizens in Bnei Brak becoming easy targets for harassment and physical attack."
At the end of the letter, the center's members demanded, via attorney Ala Haider, that the attorney general immediately order the police to open an investigation against the rabbis.
"We demand they are prosecuted according to law and will not settle for apologies that have proven to be meaningless."
The document, entitled "A holy calling" was distributed in Bnei Brak's Pardes Katz neighborhood, and signed by the town's rabbinical leaders including Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner, Rabbi Michael Yehuda Lefkovich, Bnei Brak's chief rabbi and other members of the Council of Torah Sages.
The rabbis' call came in addition to another call distributed by the Pardes Katz residents' committee. The announcements distributed in the neighborhood urged the residents to take action against housing Arabs.
"We will not let hostile sources that are not of our people bring sin and assimilation to our neighborhoods! We wish to remove them all, that there will be no Arabs around us," the announcement said.
"We cannot accept such an atmosphere so dangerous to our minds and bodies, we will not let hostile sources that are not of our people bring sin and assimilation to our neighborhoods!" It continued.
The city's rabbis joined the committee's cry and they published an announcement calling to uproot the severe phenomenon of renting apartments to Arabs in Pardes Katz.
The announcement stated: "We wish to announce that this is entirely forbidden."
ADL condemns rabbis' call
The Anti-Defamation League said Wednesday it strongly condemns the leaflet published by the rabbis.
“We deplore such bigotry in the strongest terms. Such discriminatory appeals are a terrible offense against Jewish teaching and a stain on the name of the Jewish people. Such conduct toward Jews anywhere in the world would not be tolerated and such conduct toward non-Jews must also not be tolerated in the Jewish state,” the organization said in a statement.
“The call to residents of the city to discriminate against Arabs and foreign workers is not only incompatible with Israeli democratic law and we call upon the authorities to investigate this so-called ultra-Orthodox organization,” the statement read.
