Letter to the Press Following the Ban on Renting Apartments to Gentiles

Yedioth Ahronoth – 2010

The rabbinical statement banning the renting of apartments to Arabs has provoked a series of reactions in its favor and in its condemnation. Many of them – on both sides – are biased, selective, and misleading. Therefore, it is important to explain that this is a document full of distortions and demagogy, which has nothing to do with halakhic law. We are dealing with a political pamphlet whose creators suffer from poor judgment. They harness halakhic sources to their own ends through distorted interpretation, and precisely because of this, the matter is extremely harmful and flawed.

The statement contains blasphemy. It is capable of endangering Jews abroad. And most of all, it contains an improper revelation of the Torah. Whoever wrote it should go back to school and not teach laws in Israel.

Indeed, there are clear halakhic sources that prohibit selling land in the Land of Israel to Gentiles (with many methods regarding the group in question). There are also prohibitions against marrying and interfering with Gentiles. There are serious and painful security and social problems that are mentioned in the statement of opinion. But the absurd mixture of arguments presented in it, each of which is relevant to a different group of Gentiles (and some of which are also relevant to Jews), is a mixture of lies with truth that is more harmful than an outright lie and, of course, bears the name of halakhic law in vain.

Halacha recognizes the complexity of reality. Fuschia are supposed to be based on a comprehensive view and not on a simplistic picture. They must be aware of changing times and the diversity of circumstances. But the authors of the statement did not do this. They ignored, for example, the fact that the prohibition of "not to encamp" does not apply to a resident alien, as some important poskim have said, and that several poskim have written that most gentiles today are considered resident aliens. They also ignored the fact that there are great poskim who apply it, and most of the discriminatory provisions of Halacha, only to the ancient gentiles and not to the gentiles of today.

They also ignore the fact that the physical fears of violence and terrorism concern only a minority of hostile Arabs, and certainly not all non-Jews. In their appeal to lowering the value of apartments as a halakhic matter, they implicitly say that according to halakhic law, houses in Tel Aviv should not be sold to ultra-Orthodox Jews for this reason, and that they should not agree to the construction of a home for children from ruined families in our neighborhood. They forget and disregard the words of Rabbi Herzog, zt"l, and the simple wisdom that in a democratic state it is impossible to discriminate against non-Jews on any level, regardless of the interpretation of the prohibition of "not to beg."

There is a fear of hostile takeover of state lands and assets. There is a complicated problem of intermarriage. Jews cannot live in Arab communities. All of these require a straightforward and courageous confrontation, and if they were to write this, their words would have value and a broad consensus would be created about them. But such a confrontation cannot be done through a distorted and simplistic interpretation of Halacha, and ignoring basic moral rules.

According to such a simplistic interpretation of the sources, which does not recognize changing circumstances, disobedient women should be flogged, unbelieving Jews should be thrown into the pit, women should be forbidden to study Torah, perhaps even a literal "eye for an eye." But the art of ruling on halakhic law is the combination of the sources and the application to changing circumstances. Anyone who does not understand this does not know what halakhic law is.

In the current context, two conclusions emerge from this: First, city rabbis are civil servants and any of their preaching of a violation of state law requires their dismissal (incidentally, the rule of law is also a halakhic value). Second, someone who interprets the sources of halakhic law in such a distorted and immoral way, someone who is so severely disconnected from the reality and values of Israeli society, is seriously flawed in his halakhic judgment and is disqualified from any rabbinical position. All we can do is pray that "our judges will return as they were at first and our counselors as they were at first."

Rabbi Avraham is

R.M. at the Higher Institute of Torah

Bar-Ilan University