Comparison of religious legislation to Nazism made in Knesset on eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
By JPOST.COM STAFFbread biz 88 224(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Religious legislation in Israel, such as the Hametz Law and the lack of a framework for marrying non-Jews, is comparable to the Nuremberg Laws, author Sefi Rachlevsky said Wednesday, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, at a Knesset Interior Committee meeting. The remark drew vocal responses from religious MKs, who silenced him.
"There is no room for laws with racist content, not on Holocaust Remembrance Day and not on any other day," the author, a vocal critic of the Orthodox community in Israel, said during the meeting, which addressed a landmark decision by a Jerusalem court to allow stores to sell leavened products during Pessah.
Haredi MKs responded with vehemence, silencing Rachlevsky and yelling that he was insane and should be committed.
"I have been serving in the Knesset for many years and I cannot remember such remarks being made in the Knesset," United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni said. "Also, as far as I know, since the beginning of the state there was never anyone who even hinted at a comparison between the law of Torah and the Nuremberg Laws, God forbid.
"This is unbelievable," he continued. "We are living in a democratic Jewish state. I'm happy that this insolent man did not continue to speak."
Rachlevsky, on the other hand, claimed that he was only trying to spark a more meaningful debate.
"If you don't start on the basic level you will arrive at such laws and generate a reality that makes Israelis' lives hell," he went on. "Only a debate that does not shy away from placing a mirror that shows who we are can reveal this."
At that point however, several MKs who were present at the meeting silenced him. Labor MK Ophir Paz-Pines, the chairman of the committee, called Rachlevsky's behavior "chutzpah."
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