[PHOTO: An Israeli soldier inspects graffiti, in Hebrew, believed to have been written by Israeli Jewish settlers on a mosque wall in the West Bank city of Qalqilia] December 4, 2008. MaanImages/Khaleel Reash
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Scores more Israeli rabbis have added their names to a document calling on Jews to avoid renting or selling property to non-Jews, despite an outpouring of criticism, media reported on Thursday. Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported that some 300 religious figures had signed the public statement, which warns that “it is forbidden in the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a foreigner.” The document first emerged on Tuesday, and was swiftly condemned by figures across Israeli society, from rabbinical groups and rights organisations to politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The statement calls for those who rent or sell property to non-Jews to be ostracised by the larger community.
“After someone sells or rents just one flat, the value of all the neighbouring flats drops … He who sells or rents (to non-Jews) causes his neighbours a big loss and his sin is great,” it says.
“Anyone who sells (property to a non-Jew) must be cut off!!”
The manifesto quotes extensively from Jewish writings, including from the Bible. It cites Exodus 23:33, which reads: “Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.”
The document initially garnered the signatures of some 50 rabbis, most of them employed by the state and minister to Jewish communities across Israel.
By Thursday, that number had reportedly grown to more than 300, prompting widespread condemnation and calls for Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to take action against the signatories on grounds of incitement to racism.
Noah Flug, head of the International Association of Holocaust Survivors, told Ynet he was shocked by the content of the letter, saying it reminded him of when the Nazis banned Jews from living near them.
“I remember the German Nazis throwing Jews out of their apartments and city centres in order to create ghettos,” he told the news website.
“I remember how they wrote on benches that no Jews were allowed, and of course it was prohibited to sell or rent to Jews. We thought that in our country this wouldn’t happen.”
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has called on Netanyahu to discipline state-employed rabbis who signed the letter, and Arab-Israeli lawmaker Mohammed Barakeh called for a legal investigation.
On Wednesday, around 150 demonstrators gathered to condemn the letter in a protest outside Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue
Speaking to Haaretz newspaper, parliamentary speaker Reuven Rivlin described the public statement “as an embarrassment to the Jewish people, and another nail in the coffin of Israeli democracy.”
Despite the condemnation, Menachem Friedman, a specialist on the Jewish world at Bar Ilan university, said there was widespread support for the views in the letter.
“They are expressing the fears of the whole population, particularly those in the poorest sectors of society,” he told AFP.
“The threats that Israel faces comes from Islamism, and the hostile positions the state takes towards the Arab minority contributes to fear and creates a ghetto mentality among the Jews, even though they are the majority in Israel.”
Historian Ilan Greilsammer agreed, saying the sentiments expressed in the letter were merely a reflection of what people were actually thinking.
“The rabbis are saying above what the people are thinking below. What’s new is that they are expressing it publicly.”
Israel has 1.3 million Arab citizens — Palestinians who remained in the country after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 and their descendants.