Another case of: what if they were Muslim?
Tel Aviv Rabbis: Renting apartments to foreign workers violates Jewish law
Twenty-five rabbis from Tel Aviv have signed an edict forbidding the rental of apartments to “infiltrators” and illegal foreign workers.
In a public announcement, the rabbis said that “in the wake of the severe pressure that the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv face and their abandonment by the government, that begins with the Israeli-Egyptian border and ends with the lawlessness and violence that is taking over south Tel Aviv, the residents of the neighborhoods have decided that the present situation cannot continue”.
The authors of a petition on the subject added that “they will not let the neighborhoods in which they grew up to turn into Sudanese neighborhoods, something that has already happened to the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood. After many attempts using acceptable legal means, the residents decided to have the rabbis sign an ‘Edict Forbidding the Rental of Apartments to Infiltrators,’ and hope that this will halt the deterioration of the
neighborhoods.”
An announcement that activists intend to post on bulletin boards around the city states that “we, the undersigned, neighborhood rabbis and synagogue rabbis, hereby warn the public of the religious prohibitions and the foreseeable dangers that would result from renting apartments to these people.” The rabbis added that “may the efforts of those that toil to defend the Jewish character of the City of Tel Aviv be strengthened.”
“This is a sad day for the citizens of Israel, when racism receives legitimization,” said Ran Cohen, the Director of the Migrant Refugee & Non-Status Division of the organization Doctors for Human Rights. “We call upon citizens to fiercely reject this petition and courageously stand in opposition to this display of fear and xenophobia that is gaining traction within our society.”
Meretz MK Ilan Gil’on said that “again, we are witness to racist incitement on the part of the rabbis. The same rabbis that should be preaching love of Israel and all of humanity are attempting to incite hatred and arouse fear among Israeli society. The Attorney General must investigate to find out if these rabbis are on the government payroll.”
July 8th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Hmmm….no news of this in the mainstream media….wonder why
July 8th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Arrgghh these people DO NOT represent me as a Jew, I disown them
July 8th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
By the way, that’s the only democracy in the Middle East. I love it!
July 9th, 2010 at 12:29 am
“What if they were Muslim?”
Good question.
Could those Rabbis go to Mecca and rent an apartment?
Oh, and a tad bad on timing. A story just came out of poor Pakistani Christians being denied the right to eat at shelters in Punjab province.
July 9th, 2010 at 8:58 am
When ever the Muslims move into Non-Muslim land.they turn those areas into ghetos.What choice the Jewish people have?Terrorism also follows where ever the Muslims move in or live,because Islam and terrorism are the two sides of the same coin.
July 9th, 2010 at 10:04 am
DumbAss: When ever the Muslims move into Non-Muslim land.they turn those areas into ghetos.What choice the Jewish people have?Terrorism also follows where ever the Muslims move in or live,because Islam and terrorism are the two sides of the same coin.
Terrorism follows wherever Muslims move in, yet there has not been any terrorism committed by the Muslim communities of Singapore, Japan, South Korea, etc. Ever heard of a thing called regression analysis? I’m sure you haven’t (most likely because you are uneducated). The day you can show statistical evidence that emergence of Muslim communities is associated with ghettoization, then we can have a debate.
July 9th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
“When ever the Muslims move into Non-Muslim land.they turn those areas into ghetos.What choice the Jewish people have?Terrorism also follows where ever the Muslims move in or live,because Islam and terrorism are the two sides of the same coin.” Under normal circumstances I would say don’t waste any time with guys who write such rubbish. The problem is that this is hate speech! Hate speech is the first step of fascists’ plan whose ultimate end is to commit genocide: to smear the intended victims as “Dangerous enemies within our midst:” Enemies whom later they make legitimate to hunt down, gehttoize, rob, rape, expel, murder. Like the Nazis did with the Jews. Like the Serbofasacists did with the Bosniaks. Like the Hutu did with the Tutsi. Such hate speech is not merely the product of “loonies” or “Islamophobes” whom one can dismiss as mentaly ill. Okay, mentally ill they are, deluded most certanily but they are certainly not stupid. They know very well what they are doing: incite to hatred and genocide.
July 10th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Who bought modern terrorism to this land.
A land for a people, for a people without a land?
July 10th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Ha…excuse me…did you see the stand by Ran Cohen, Ilan Gilon and others took?
Whenever Muslims discriminate against non-Muslims (100x more harshly and more often than Jews), they are rarely criticized by ‘moderate’ Muslims.
And when these Muslims are criticized by Westerners, ‘moderate’ Muslims immediately comes to the rescue, level the ‘islamophoebe’ charge at them, and claim they these Muslims misrepresent/misunderstand Islam.
July 10th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
It is impossible for an ethnic Jew to rent an apartment in an orthodox Jewish home in the USA. The reason is that the ethnic Jew does not respect the sabbath by turning on the lights.
July 11th, 2010 at 4:04 am
@IBN ABU TALIB:In response to your comments,I can only call you SMART ASS as my compliments.The reason,the Muslim community is peaceful in SINGApore,Japan and South Korea,is because they are small in number.Also,these countries tolerate no nonsense from Muslims as the Western countries do.The Muslims have nothing good to offer to any country that foolishly welcomes the Muslims in.
July 11th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
al00002002:
“they are rarely criticized by ‘moderate’ Muslims (..)”
” ‘moderate Muslims’ (..) claim they these Muslims misrepresent/misunderstand Islam.”
Cognitive dissonance much? How is an accusation of misrepresenting a religion NOT criticism?
Classic case of ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t’. Irrational urge to take a swipe at Muslims at every possible occasion. Hence: Phobia.
July 11th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
to al00002002, what the hell are you talking about? Moderate muslims are constantly condemning extremists even the recent attempt by Iran to stone a woman to death was widely condemned by most muslims and it was them who pressured Iran to stop the execution not just the West.
July 12th, 2010 at 12:41 am
ISLAMOPHOBIC rabbis
July 12th, 2010 at 4:48 am
Jihad Bob
“Good question. Could those Rabbis go to Mecca and rent an apartment?”
You’re Robert Spencer aren’t you? That is a very stupid question. The answer is no, they cannot. No non Muslim has been allowed into a five mile radius of either city since the death of The Prophet. The first Caliph declared them to be for Muslims only. You know very well that is a FACT.
How dare you compare Israel to Mecca or Medina.
MECCA AND MEDINA ARE THEOCRACIES, RULED BY ISLAMIC LAW. They claim to be “western democracies with secular values”
ISRAEL CLAIMS TO HAVE SECULAR WESTERN VALUES AND IS NOT A THEOCRACY.
Do you see your stupidity highlighted in spectacular style? Nobody would be questioning Israel for religious apartheid if she said she was a theocracy. Then she would be justified in having what the western world call “religious apartheid”. And if she were, Christians would be more persecuted than in Pakistan, as you complain, because Orthodox Judaism views Christianity as an idolatry and no idolatry is permitted in Israel if there was a theocracy. Not much different to Mecca or Medina then huh Bob? Shows your hypocricy you two faced turncoat. You’re paid to write lies about Islam, but people whose religion views yours as idolatry. It shows your stinkinng low down cheap moral code, you media whore.
Maybe you’re not aware that ancient Israel was a theocracy ruled by Torah law.
“Oh, and a tad bad on timing. A story just came out of poor Pakistani Christians being denied the right to eat at shelters in Punjab province”
Whilst the Christians who are denied their rights are being wronged, the people who perpetrate these atrocities, are usually not practicing Muslims. Some extremists do persecute Christians but that’s because they wrongly are led to believe that they are in cahoots with the Satan USA, who is killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
There is usually another underylying reason, for Christian persectuion, usually land disputes etc. and because the religous laws are there, they are abused.
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Emperor, Thank you for this piece.
Maybe the title is bit misleading here? All Jews worldwide have automatic right of return to Israel, in other words there cannot be an illegal jewish immigrant to Israel. That’s why the title implies that there is some form of racism or bigotry at play here. There is not. It’s simply not allowing illegal immigrants in. The Jewish Sudanese can come in anyway, so they wouldn’t be illegal.
—————————-
To the other members who commented above
I note that some of you are treating this as if the Rabbi’s banned renting to them because they’re Muslim. That is not the case. The reason they are banning them from renting is because they are entering the country illegally. The sudanese immigrants are not all Muslim by the way, some are Christian and other pagan religions of the Sudan. This is about stopping illegal immigrants.
By the way, has any mention been made of how Egypt is treating them?
I’m a bit puzzled at the attitude and response by some of the posters. First, assuming most of the posters are American, doesn’t America have a law against letting property to illegal immigrants? don’t landlords have obligations to ensure that nothing illegal is going on? Otherwise they’re aiding and abetting a crime.
Doesn’t almost every country have laws against illegal immigrants? many even fine businesses which hire illegal immigrants. If that were not the case, countries which are landlocked would be flooded with immigree’s. You need a mechanism in place to stop illegal immigration, and one of them is to forbid to rent property, another is to employ..in some European countries these are laws.
Let’s criticise Israel for something that she is doing wrong ( the occupation) and not something like this which diverts attention from the real crimes and make us seem that we hold Israel to a double standard and which in turn gives the neo cons something to use against us.
July 14th, 2010 at 4:11 am
What seems strange about this series ”What if they were Muslim?” is the underlying assumption that crimes committed by non-Muslims somehow get less attention than those done by Muslims. Well, it very much depends on the context which is entirely ignored at this site. To take one example, the recent shooting rampage by Raoul Moat certainly featured on British newc channels in Britain much more than the bombings in Kampala. Why was this? Not because of any sort of personal bias against Mr. Moat, it’s just that the shooting and the aftermath are uncommon occurrences in Britain, and it was a domestic issue. Indeed, the 7/7 bombings received just as much coverage, but not because of some perceived bias against Muslims.
Ths second faulty assumption in this series is that religous motivation is never ascribed to non-Muslims, but it clearly is in the news item mentioned above. And it’s not being inored by the media: it’s openly discussed in Ha’aretz.
Finally, this series is simply playing tu quoque. As an analogy, I could ask the Israeli human-rights group ”Why don’t you write reports documenting human-rights abuses in Tibet, Burma etc.?”. That would be entirely fallacious, because that’s not the organization’s purpose, and the focus of its activities in no way implies endorsement or apathy towards human-rights abuses committed elsewhere. Similarly, if you’re wondering why Jihad Watch doesn’t mention the news item above or others, it’s because that’s not the purpose of the site”: it documents instances of jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. And for the record, Spencer has on repeated occasions stressed that he does not believe Muslims have or have ever had a monopoly on evil, only that the strand of jihad violence and Islamic supremacism is quite active throughout much of the world today.
July 18th, 2010 at 12:47 am
@Aymen Al Tammimi:
This blog emerged precisely because of the unfairness of media in the US (i’ll ignore Europe for the time being).
I wish there were more blogs like these. More individual citizens doing their jobs of exposing and castigating bigots who live amongst of what ever creed or ethnicity. Still I believe this blog has done atleast a little good job of addressing genocidal maniacs amongst us such as Geller and hate preachers such as Spencer, won’t you agree.
I bet Ameircan citizens part of whose identity is being muslim would certainly feel not only comforted but also resilient in their sense of enlightened patriotism seeing their fellow citizens and indeed fellow human beings standing up with them.
Genocidal rhetoric such as those of Geller and the language of genocide such as that of Spencer can and must make every one nervous.
And yes, the crimes reported in the media regarding persons who don’t have a muslim background are given a coverage without maliging the entire community. So that assumption of this blog is also correct.
And lastly, tu quoque as you can see right here on this page is being practiced by those individuals who would love to see muslims subjected to violent solutions including mass murder such as the inaccurate hyperbole about Christians in Pakistan.
This site does not target any organic community, religion or race. It exposes bigots. On the other hands hate sites such as those of Spencer and Geller, do exactly the opposite. They promote violence through false hood. Meaning if a violent act is committed by a muslim, they would use the instance as the imminent downfall of the US, Europe, West, World because of muslims. And even if it is showed to them that the same day in the same zip code many more crimes were committed by individuals of another creed or background, they’ll ignore it, bury it, use red herrings, personal attacks, tu quoques and what not.
yeah?
July 24th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
What do you mean what if they were Muslim.
In Jordan selling land to Israelis or someone acting on their behalf was illegal and punishable by death prior to1995. A milder statute that took its place still bars Israelis from buying, or leasing, Jordanian land.
“[I]t is impermissible for foreign persons or corporate entities that do not hold an Arab nationality to purchase, lease, or own directly or indirectly any immovable property in the kingdom” according to the Law on Economic Boycott and Banning Dealing with the Enemy (Article 6) without an exception approved by high level political authorization.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:40 pm
In the town of Safed on the Gallillee, Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu leads a campaign forbidding landowners to rent out apartments to Israeli Muslim students, coming from neighboring villages to study Medicine in the College at Safed. These students are NOT illegal immigrants, they are legal Israeli citizens.