Hundreds of rabbis slam Olmert as 'anti-Jewish'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hundreds of rabbis slam Olmert as 'anti-Jewish'*
After destruction of synagogues, yeshiva, removal of Jews near holiest sites
Posted: August 10, 2007
News From Israel
JERUSALEM –A group of hundreds of prominent Israeli rabbis today issued
a statement calling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent actions
"anti-Jewish" and "hostile to Judaism."
The rabbis were referring to a series of moves the past week in which
the prime minister directed his security forces to bulldoze a synagogue
near Judaism's third holiest site, destroy another synagogue near
Judaism's second holiest site, boot a rabbi and his mobile yeshiva from
Hebron – the world's oldest Jewish city – and forcibly remove two Jewish
families from a Hebron Jewish market.
Olmert's actions are "anti-Jewish and hostile to Judaism in spite of the
fact that he speaks Hebrew and dwells in the Land of the Patriarchs,"
read a statement by the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a coalition of
more than 350 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis.
One of the synagogues destroyed this week was constructed so Jews can
pray at Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, believed to be the
burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph – the son of Jacob who was
sold by his brothers into slavery and later became the viceroy of Egypt.
The other synagogue, the mobile yeshiva and the two Jewish families were
located near Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs, the second holiest site in
Judaism and the believed resting place of the biblical patriarchs and
matriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.
The rabbis commented: "Our Sages tell us that there are three places in
Israel that absolutely no one can contest its legal Jewish ownership
because the Bible clearly records the sale and purchase of these places
by Jews.
One is the area around the Cave of the Patriarchs as written in Genesis
23:16-18: "And Abraham weighed out to Ephron the money that he had
mentioned … four hundred silver shekalim in negotiable currency. And
Ephron's field … and the cave within it and all the trees in the field,
within all its surrounding boundaries, was confirmed as Abraham's purchase."
The second place is Joseph's Tomb; as written in Genesis 33:19, "For one
hundred kesitah. … And Jacob bought the parcel of the field … from the
children of Hamor."
The third is the Temple Mount; as recorded in Chronicles 1: 21:25,
"David gave Ornan for the place gold shekels weighing six hundred."
"How ironic and painful it is that precisely these three places that the
nations of the world never thought of wresting from Jews, the Jews by
their own volition give it up and say it belongs to the Arabs," the
rabbis said.
The rabbis reference to the Temple Mount was in response to rules
imposed by the Israeli government that restrict non-Muslim visits to the
site to certain hours on weekdays and deem illegal any Jewish or
Christian prayer on the site. Muslims visits to the Temple Mount are
largely unrestricted, and they can pray in any of the site's major mosques.
Olmert's government earlier this week mobilized 3,000 soldiers who
forcibly evicted two Jewish families from a Jewish market in Hebron.
The government maintains the families' residency in Hebron was illegal,
since their arrival wasn't coordinated with the Israeli military. The
families say they moved in after the military reneged on an agreement.
The families' eviction was widely regarded in Israel as the opening
salvo of more planned major evacuations of Jews living in the West
Bank's biblical Jewish communities.
The structure, now converted to small, two-story apartments, was built
in 1929 after Arab riots temporarily forced Jews from Hebron – the first
time the city was without a Jewish presence in over 2,500 years. For
more than 30 years, a sign was posted on the market boasting in Arabic
that the structure was built on stolen Jewish property.
Arab merchants illegally set up shop at the market but were asked by the
Israel Defense Forces to leave after a series of clashes broke out in
the mid-1990s. Even though the market was stolen by the Arabs, Hebron's
Jewish community purchased the market from its original Arab occupants
in 2001.
In January 2006, Jewish families took up occupancy to strengthen Jewish
ties to the area following the murder of an infant by a Palestinian
sniper, yards away from the market.
The market, integrated within the Hebron Jewish community, is adjacent
to several Jewish apartments and Jewish municipal buildings. It is not
located in an Arab neighborhood. It doesn't require any additional
protection from IDF soldiers already patrolling the area.
Despite the original property owners' recent signing over of the market
to Hebron's Jewish community, as well as Israel's Supreme Court ruling
that the structure was Jewish-owned, the government considers the
occupancy of the marketplace illegal, saying families living inside did
not negotiate their arrival with the IDF.
Following a standoff with the army last year, the Jews who had moved
into the market decided to leave, reportedly after receiving promises
from military officials they could return a few months later, after the
court systems – which deemed the property Jewish – worked with the IDF
to verify the legality of the Jewish residence.
But Israel's attorney general overturned the Supreme Court decision and
declared the residents cannot move in.
Still, two Jewish families recently moved back. Israeli security forces
removed them Monday.
Aside from evicting the two Jewish families, Israeli forces, acting on
orders from the government, destroyed a synagogue in the area, since the
structure was not built with a government permit. Israel also ordered a
rabbi out of Hebron because his mobile yeshiva was not
Last week, Israeli forces also destroyed a synagogue near Joseph's Tomb,
Judaism's third holiest site, since that synagogue, like the one in
Hebron, was built without a government permit.
While rampant illegal construction in Arab sections of Hebron remains
largely unregulated, the Israeli government strictly enforces
construction regulations in the city's Jewish sections, which are
cordoned off to about 25 percent of Hebron's territory; the rest of
Hebron is Arab.
Olmert's decision to single out for evacuation two Jewish families
living in Jewish sections of Hebron has been called into question by
religious leaders here.
It was previously revealed that the Israeli government has allowed
Palestinians and the United Nations to build illegally on hundreds of
acres of Jewish-owned lands in Jerusalem purchased by the Jewish
National Fund, a U.S.-based Jewish organization, using Jewish donors
funds solicited for the purpose of Jewish settlement. Tens of thousands
of Palestinians live on the Jewish-owned Jerusalem land, which was
recently isolated from Jewish sections of Jerusalem by Israel's security
barrier.
It was also previously reported that the city of Jerusalem, under orders
from Olmert, deleted files documenting hundreds of illegal Arab building
projects throughout eastern sections of Jerusalem housing tens of
thousands of Palestinians, according to a report by the Jerusalem Forum,
which promotes Jewish construction in the city.