former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu saying that "the reek
of
hell wafts" from Reform and Conservative synagogues, and it is
therefore
forbidden to walk by them.
Eliyahu, a leading religious Zionist rabbi, made the remark last week
during
his weekly Torah lecture. It was later reprinted in the bulletin Kol
Tzofayich, which was distributed in synagogues throughout Israel over
the
weekend.
In his lecture, Eliyahu related that he was once invited to a
circumcision
in a building that contained three synagogues, one Orthodox, one
Conservative and one Reform. The Orthodox synagogue, he said, was on
the top
floor, "and I wondered how I would enter and pass by these synagogues,
from
which the reek of hell wafts ... They told me that there was a sort of
side
kitchen through which one could go up without passing those synagogues,
and
I told them that I would only go up via that kitchen, and only if I
would
not pass the entrances to those forbidden synagogues."
[]
Attorney Yizhar Hess, secretary general of the Masorti Movement,
responded
that "Rabbi Eliyahu crossed the border of good taste, and his hateful,
malicious words scorned an entire community. It is inconceivable that a
religious leader should use expressions that constitute a call for
civil
war. The rabbi would do well to retract his statements and apologize to
the
millions of Jews whose honor he impugned."
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg
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