"It is clearly promised in Torah that if a major portion of Israel strays from Torah a major curse will follow. It shouldn't have been any surprise that when a major portion of Israel rejected Torah in the birth of the Reform movement that a Shoah was sure to follow." I wrote that 2007.03.25 and a lot of Torah-ignorers went ballistic. It's still true. "I'm angry that the Reform movement, and Jews in general, are being blamed for what happened. If you claim that everything happened because God decided to punish the Jews, then what do we want from the Germans?" [Michael Sheizaf] asked. Neither Rav Mordekhai nor I suggested that "Jews in general, are being blamed for what happened." That's wildly perverting the facts. I can speak only for myself but I've never suggested that exonerates the European perpetrators (Germans and others). It's widely accepted that the catastrophes of 70 CE and 135 CE were caused by unbridled Hellenization (1st-century Reform), but no one has ever suggested that absolved the Romans. The suggestion that citing the Reform Movement as a cause of the Shoah is a denial of the Shoah is so non sequitur and self-evidently contradictory it's ridiculous. It no more implies that the Nazis weren't guilty than attributing the catastrophes of 70 CE and 135 CE on widespread apostasy in the first century CE 'implies' that the Romans weren't guilty. That's nothing more than unadulterated demagoguery foolishness. The disgrace to Judaism is the Reform Movement. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

Since when does Rav Eliyahu have a direct line to G-d so that he knows why Hashem did or allowed for anything. The last I heard there are no prophets and no one gets direct messages from G-d - just like all the rabbanim who insisted that the expulsion from Gush Katif would not happen. Enough - the time has come for humility and for them to stop talking as if they have the only source of divine knowledge.

If so, post a audio mp3 or a transcript. Has anyone read a transcript or all your judgments coming from ynet?

Look the religous are thriving. The Baal Teshuva movements whether Chabad Shar Yashuv Or someach are all thriving. Thousands upon thousands are seeing the falseness and futility meaningless life they have lived under Conservative reform or nonaffiliated Life so they are searching for truth and they are all ending in torah true Judaism. Have a look at the knesset and you will see that over the years the orthodoxy are gaining in strength. People that somehow turn the Rabbis words to mean holocaust denier are freightened and sick.

Rabbi Eliyahu is a great Talmudic scholar and we should all pay close attention to what he says and weigh carefully his opinions. The layman should be most cautious before he or she disagrees with someone like Rabbi Eliyahu. And while no one is above criticism, we have to be especially certain that we have fathomed the depths of a sage's thinking before we jump on him and dismiss his words.

as have many haredim who blame Zionism, Progressive Judaism or any other group besides the Nazis. I'll sum it up for you: Job was an extremely righteous man but fell victim to many disasters. His friends insisted that he must have committed some sin. Job grows tired of his friends' nonsense and pleads his case directly to G-d. G-d basically tells Job that it was never anything personal. G-d then expresses anger at Job's friends for assuming that some sin must have been involved.

the destruction of the 2 Beit Hamikdash and the reason for it? G-d does not punish in vain. Jews who act against the Torah and against G-d's commandment, like the Reform Jews, are the ones who are making the Hillul Hashem. It's time you and the rest of them learn the truth about G-d's ways.

without the OK from Above. Instead of "feeling sorry" for religious Jews, how about finding out why the One Above gave His OK?

The Shoah was caused by the accumulated anti-Semitic hatred and blood libels of milennia, fertilized and encouraged by demagogues and evil propaganda. It was caused by the world ignoring the Armenian genocide so that the Nazis thought they could get away with genocide. It was not caused by Reform Jews. R Eliyahu, blaming the victim, is a disgrace.

Reading "rabbi" Eliyahu's despicable statement along with some of the responses from his defenders is enough to make a person an atheist. What kind of person would believe that the more than one million children were killed because of the Reform Movement is so horrible that it is obvious that the Orthodox who are observant do so out of fear rather than a love for G-d and his commandments. Is it the fault of the Orthodox because they don't keep ALL of the 613 that the Holocaust happened? Would the Holocaust have happened if all the Reform Jews had converted to Christianity instead of maintaining their Jewish heitage in an incredibly antisemitic environment? Are the Orthodox Jews who died in the Holocaust guilty of some horrible sin also?

I suggest we all pay alttention. He knows a lot more than you uneducated fools condemming him.

He is obviously not very well and should see a doctor as soon as possible. I hope he gets well soon.

l Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions

..."and because it is said that the wrath of God does not distinguish between the righteous and the evil ones – this was done." The good shepherd knows his sheep and he would not be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. Not even wrong, but pure nonsense I never heard from an ex-chief Rabbi. I don't know why God did not intervene from our human point of view. God is immanent and transcendent, so could he change human, so human history without upsetting his creation ? A short story featuring this point is to be found here. " Wiesel thought of God before and during the Holocaust as both the protector and punisher of the Jewish people. Whatever had happened before, he had faith that it was for their good, or one of God's greater plans. Either way, he would accept God's will without questioning. When rumours of the Nazis' crimes first reached some of the outlying Jewish towns, like Wiesel's Sighet, no one believed them. ``The rabbis said: `Nothing will happen to us, for God needs us.' '' ([Legends], 124) The town felt that God was with them and would protect them from anything as horrible as what these rumours suggested. They felt safe and secure in their faith. ``And we, the Jews of Sighet, were waiting for better days, which would not be long in coming now.'' ([Night], 5) As Gregor said his final good-byes to Gavriel in The Gates of the Forest, his faith was with him, despite what he had learned from Gavriel. He thought, ~ ~ The sun was high in the sky, and it was growing warmer. All will be well; God sees to it that the HARMONY may not be DESTROYED, [emphasized throughout] all will be well; history moves on, and men, after all, weren't created just to slaughter one another. ([Gates], 49) He had only to wait to learn how wrong he was. Even though things continued to get worse, as Jews were abused in the streets, and the friendly townsfolk started showing deep-seeded hatred of their Jewish neighbours, the Jews still had faith. Wiesel notes, ``Our optimism remained unshakable. It was simply a question of holding out for a few days...Once again the God of Abraham would save his people, as always, at the last moment, when all seemed lost.'' ([Legends], 25) God did not save his people in time, and they were carted off to the concentration camps like cattle." (Elie Wiesel's Relationship with God By Robert E. Douglas, Jr. Sufficiency Course Sequence). Truth belongs to God, his truth is unfathomable.

Not only is this very sad, it is terribly destructive. While a retraction would be beneficial, it would seem unlikely.

Comments like this one are to blame if people chose to leave the jewish faith. The Rav couldn't make a better job in helping christian missionaries and antisemites.

Liberal Judaism are practicing "Bark Mitzvah" for theirs pet dog at their temple complete with a tallit and kipah for the dog, a sermon and appropriate Gifts. See Going to the Dogs http://ohr.edu/yhiy/article.php/2217/

Since the Reform movement is bankrupt ideologically at least now they have something to rally behind-clearing their "good" name from the slander of Orthodox Rabbis. Pathetic Reform Jews.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8.32"

B"H You have to understand that reform and change are synonyms, and that Hitler sought to change the text of the Bible to eliminate the Jewish people there. That was one of the core motivations behind Hitler's evil. Reformers of religion were not just Jewish. And it does not deny the Holocost at all. Hitler's effect of wiping out the purpose of the Jews in the religious texts was to attempt to also elimate the physical embodiment of those words, the Jewish people. I do not see any denial at all in these words of the effect. Rather is seems to me to be a big caution that those who start by trying to change the purpose of the Jewish people in words can end in trying to eliminate the Jewish people, and this caution needs to be taken very seriously. The Chief Rabbi in my opinion should not be held accountable for people who cannot understand what he is saying. For me it is a profound warning.

David, So what you are saying is that all the innocents, 6 million Jews, 54 Million others are G-d's punishment because of the reform movement? I have a hard enough time keeping my children in the faith. If I tell them that G-d is that uncaring and cruel...I'll have no leg to stand on. I refuse to believe that my G-d, the one and only is like that. You are comfortable believing this? You are OK with the idea that innocent children by the hundreds of thousands had to die horrible deaths to satisfy a punishment? David! G-d can not be that cruel. By definition G-d is not! My faith a prayers speak of a kind a merciful almighty, what does your Siddu say?

Say all you want against him. Say that you feel like coming atheist (as if you are not one already) Say he is crazy. Say he should see a doctor. Poke fun but know that until you can prove him wrong (which you can't), you are all a bunch of ignoramuses. Her has all the proof in the world to his statement. Torah says it in black and white. History proves it and so does the current events. Cry babies. The truth hurts doesn't it.

Somehow the logic of No. 31 eludes me. In his first paragraph he says: "It is clearly promised in Torah that if a major portion of Israel strays from Torah a major curse will follow. It shouldn't have been any surprise that when a major portion of Israel rejected Torah in the birth of the Reform movement that a Shoah was sure to follow." Who promises that in the Torah ? God ? Man ? It would appear to me that if that is actually promised in the Torah only God can do that for all time. He goes on to say: I can speak only for myself but I've never suggested that exonerates the European perpetrators (Germans and others). Now this is where his logic escapes me. If God has made that promise, then what are the Germans ? Independent perpetrators or instruments of God ? How can he say that first the promise is in the Torah and then say that the Germans are guilty ? I would seem to me, according to his logic, that the Germans were just carrying out what God had ordained. It's widely accepted that the catastrophes of 70 CE and 135 CE were caused by unbridled Hellenization (1st-century Reform), but no one has ever suggested that absolved the Romans. I love the statement: "It's widely accepted". Widely accepted by who ? IMO, it is "widely accepted" that the catastrophe of 70 CE was brought on, not by unbridled Hellenism but by over zealousness and misreading of relative strenghts of the 2 major protagonist groups - the zealots and the Romans - by the zealots themselves. This had nothing to do with Hellenisation but more to do with Roman oppression. The same can be said of the Bar Kokva revolt in 135 CE - Bar Kokva thought he could drive the Romans out. He didn't totally understand the relative strengths of the two sides and as a result, the Jews were exiled from the holy land for almost 2,000 years. No. 31 can attempt cartwheels in the air (sminiot b'avir) but the fact remains that someone who blames the Reform movement for the holocaust does deny the holocaust because he puts the Germans as an instrument of God in fulfilling what the Torah supposedly predicts.

I know the truth. I'm a former "born-again" evangelist Baptist preacher who translated the entire NT from ALL of the earliest extant source documents up through the 4th century. Read the Christian Oxford historian defining work: "The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue" and get over your own incredible ignoring and denial of truth. Read your own earliest extant church historian: Eusebius. I did, and I learned the truth, and it set me free. Now you practice what you preach: learn the truth and it will set you free. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming Jews & non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

Isn't it enough that we are mired by the appalling way we treat holocaust survivors? Isn't it enough that our leaders are mired by corruption both financial and sexual? Isn't it enough that we are being deprived of a future for our next generations that yet another product of shtetl mentality can stand up and say these unforgivable things, and then because he carries the title rabbi and was once called Rishon Le Tzion he is given credibility by the other blind Jews around the world who believe in him because of these titles. We are creating so much inner strife for ourselves, the kind that makes us ungovernable, and weak and then prey to our enemies. Another Torah great - Ovadia Yosef - announced that holocaust victims deserved their fate. He also had some fascinating insights into those who pick their noses on shabbat! And we are proud of such 'sages' and what they represent for us? Herpah Ve Bushah

1. Reform and Liberal as a system has been a disater for the Jewish people in the context of conversion, marriage and divorce. It is not the practice of the Torah and the halacha. 2. The Rav is a great authority and bats as they say in a different league from those of the R&L movement. What he has forgotten, they have neither learned or understood. 3. What he has said is one of the various widely held views on the subject in Rabbinical Circles. 4. Whats concerns me more is the ignorance and the arrogance of those who abuse the Rav, as if they have some superior insight on the subject. 5. To those I say, when you have aquired even the finger tip knowledge of the Rav them let us here your sensible comments. At present your abuse is of the level of gangsters and thugs.

If the tora , talmud or what soever religious says this , what this rabbi has said , that reform Judaism has caused the Shoa , well then all this is another reason not to believe . If a religion says that because of "bad" behaviour of some people , 6 million people have to be murdered , including 1.5 million innocent children and babies , well this religion has to be banned and damned . I do not accept any scripture , any religious explanation . If god has wanted this to happen , do not believe anymore in him .