Chief Rabbis: Avoid All Violence, Our Life Depends On It

Due to a number of incidents of attempted assaults on Arab workers in Jerusalem, the mayor appealed today (Thursday) to Chief Rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef and a number of senior religious Zionist Rabbis including Rabbi Yaakov Ariel to call for an end to the violence.

Rabbis: A Matter of Life and Death

In response to the mayor’s request, the Rabbis issued a letter decrying the phenomenon: “Unfortunately, we have received rumors of people at the edge of the camp, whose blood is boiling within them upon hearing the terrible news, and who act violently towards workers working in the service of the residents of Jerusalem and all throughout the country,” they wrote.

According to them, “we have thus come to express our protest, for aside from this matter being utterly contrary to the way of our Holy Torah, as the Sages ob”m said: this nation’s strength is but in the mouth. There is also a matter of life and death, God forbid, as those in charge of security affairs warned.”

They ended by noting that “moreover there is great loss here, that these workers will not return to work for fear of the harasser, and this means damage for all the residents and the owe others. Therefore, we ask to warn the big and the small, that no man fight and quarrel with those workers.”

“And each and every one should warn the members of his household and the youth whose blood is hot, to avoid anything of violence, God forbid, neither violence in deed nor violence in words, for our lives depend on it.”