Don’t sell property to non-Jews: Top Israel rabbis

Top Israeli rabbis threw support behind a religious ruling barring Jews selling homes to non-Jews.

Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support on Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting homes to non-Jews – an indication of growing radicalism within the rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli Arabs and Jews.

The action by the clerics – who are chief rabbis in some of Israel’s largest cities and influential among the devout – quickly fuelled charges of racism. It was also likely to deepen the feelings of alienation growing between Israel’s majority Jews and minority Arabs,and widen the schism between secular and religious Jews.

The religious opinion first became a focus of controversy last year when the chief rabbi of Safed – a town in northern Israel that has a large concentration of devout Jews – urged that it be applied specifically to Arabs.

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Nitai Morgenstern,an aide to Safed’s chief rabbi,Shmuel Eliahu,said the town has “a problem of a lot of people renting and selling to Arabs,and that destroys the city’s social fabric.”

Recently,a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews asked other chief rabbis to express their support for the ruling to prove it has widespread backing,Morgenstern said today. Thirty-seven rabbis signed it and The Associated Press obtained a copy of the ruling with their signatures attached today.

Morgenstern said he understood how this attitude could cause friction with the Arab minority,which accounts for one-fifth of Israel’s population of 7.6 million.

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