Hared MK Calls Reform Jews "Anti-Semites," "Worse Than Our Enemies"

Reform Movement representatives present at a meeting of the Knesset's Committee on the Status of Women were met with an attack by haredi MK Rabbi Yisroel Eichler who lashed out at them for being "anti-Semites who hate Israel." Eichler also said that "Reform Jews are worse than our enemies."

Rabbi Yisroel Eichler

Originally published at 10:43 pm 3-3-2012

MK Eichler: Reform Jews anti-Semites
UTJ Knesset member blasts Reform Movement reps presenting women's exclusion report for being 'anti-Semites'; finds himself removed from meeting over 'unacceptable behavior'
Omri Efraim • Ynet

MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) was removed from a Knesset Women's Committee meeting this week, after he called members of the Reform Movement "anti-Semites."

Tuesday saw Reform Movement representatives present the Knesset's Committee on the Status of Women with a report about women's exclusion in Israel, at which point Eichler lashed out at them for being "anti-Semites who hate Israel," adding that the "Reform Jews are worse than our enemies."

Committee Chairwoman MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) removed him from the meeting over his "unacceptable behavior."

MK Eichler told Hotovely that by including Reform Jews in the committee, "she marked herself as an enemy of the Haredi Judaism." He further threatened that "Hotovely would pay for her actions."
 
The Reform Movement announced that they are planning to file a complaint with the Knesset Ethics Committee over MK Eichler's "inciting words."

Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv, who spoke in front of the committee told Ynet: "We were invited to the committee's session in order to present a report concerning exclusion of women. MK Eichler lashed out at us before we even managed to say a word. His words are shameful. He must have not yet decided who he hates more – Arabs, Reform Jews or women."
 
Committee Chairwoman Tzipi Hotovely said in response that she was "saddened to see a political official abuse his power and take advantage of a Knesset debate in order to boost his popularity."

MK Eichler seemes unfazed, saying he will not worry about "such a far fetched complaint" to the Ethics Committee.

[Hat Tip: Seymour.]

Comments

[Mike]

What a rotten scumbag. The reform Jews are worse than people who try to kill us?

This is not Judaism. This is insanity.

[Korbendallas72]

Oh it's on. I guess this Haredi turd doesn't consider Jewish women as actual people who have rights. It's absurd that a practicing sorcerer would accuse anyone of anti-Semitism when his life is dedicated to it whether he knows it or not. Anti-Israel? I guess he doesn't think Jewish women are included in Israel. What a joke.

[jon]

I agree, it is a terrible, terrible sin to sing Debbie Friedman songs. But other than that, the Reform are harmless.

[who knows]

What a hutzpah that this ultra-Reformist Rabbi Eichler (and Haredim have less to do with traditional Judaim than Reform does) could accuse anyone of being Reform.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Right, because the rioters in Ramat Beit Shemesh, the Holocaust-garb wearing protestors in Meah Shearim and the Satmars who constantly demonstrate against Israel are actually secret Reformers.

[David]

It looks like Yisroel Eichler (not Rabbi) is wearing his Purim costume and doing his Purim act already.

[Bob Guthrie]

How in heck is he a MK?. Reform? Retarded is more likely.

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

Does this moron who swings live chicken over his dumb head,recites hocus pocus sorceries,believes in astrology and in man made talismans think he would have been seen as Jewish in Moshe rabbenu's days?He would have been executed in no time for sorcery and idol worship,this useless wanker!

[Seraphya]

Garnel Ironheart - it is hard to believe you aren't trolling.

That the Haredim have changed what judaism means about as much as the reform movement has is something that has validity and can not be dismissed out of hand. There is no doubt that Haredi Judaism is less "authentic" than Conservative Judaism on the whole.

If we aren't talking about the reform movement and just about reformation then there can be absolutely no doubt that the Haredi "gedolim" are among the greatest reformers of Judaism at this point in time.

[Litvish]

The Vilner Gaon was no dummie.

He put the hasidim in kherem for a good reason.

Like cockroaches they have taken over the house and now Israel as well.

They suck infant cock to get the blood ( hence, cock roaches), fuck bokherim, dress like an Amish nightmare in hell, smell like hazerim, and do so all in the name of hashem yisborakh. In their perverted mind, only they are Jews; the rest of us, from whom they shnor and live high on the hog,are worthless except for our gelt.

Rabbinic Judaism run amok.

[zur]

i don't think the bunker mentality from the orthodox against the reform or the reform against the orthodox is valid from a Torah point of view.

[SkepticalYid]

@Paul Pace: go for it dude. Nowadays we have guns, tanks and nukes.

[Garnel Ironheart]

Seraphya I was being sarcastic.
If the definition of "Reform Jew" is someone who hates Israel and other Jews, then many Chareidim are Reform Jews.

[Friar Yid]

I agree, it is a terrible, terrible sin to sing Debbie Friedman songs.

While Friedman isn't always to my taste, I think some of her songs could certainly give some tone-deaf niggunim a run for their money.

[Friar Yid]

The sooner you jooz are hunted down on the streets

I agree 100% Paul. Jewish-Druze intermarriage is an existential threat to both communities that could tear down the fabric of... something. The resulting offspring, or "Jooz" as they're known on the street, are trapped between two communities, not knowing where they belong (besides the IDF). Even religious iconography can be fraught with tension in a Joozish home-- do they go with a six-pointed star, or five?

Thanks for making us aware of the newest danger facing the Jewish people, Paul. Maybe you can come talk at a Federation conference some time. If you do, make sure to come over and say hi. I'll the one in the hat.

[PishPosh]

Mamzer Meluclach(filthy bastard). May God punish him and let him be smote by our enemies if that is what it takes him to learn to hold such a vile tongue in check.

Let him drop dead bezrat hashem.

[seymour]

let see the reform join the idf and fight for the Israel

the herdiem do not join the army or even do community service

who hates Israel again

[jancsibacsi]

litvistheese bozos make a mockery of civilization all their power coomes from their fooling others,this guys payes hanging like the genitals on 2 sides of his head the phallic symbol the payes makes a mockery of himselfs and others and he has the audacity to say what he said the nerves its beyond imagination.

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

jancsibacsi,you are wrong!His head is not a phallic symbol.It is a real phallus!

[jancsibacsi]

ABU-haha thats even more apt:)

[jancsibacsi]

Theese bozos thing they can get away withthe unthinkable or unbeleivable mindless stupidity according to theese foosl we are the fools,in a way they are right if we tolerate them for one minute .

[SkepticalYid]

Yet the accuse non-Haredi Jews of speaking hatefully about them. How ironic.

[Friar Yid]

As to the OP- as I recall, MK Eichler never misses an opportunity to get attention. (For God's sake, he was Chairman of something called "Centre for Jewish Publicity." If he can get it by baiting non-Orthodox Jews, for him that's icing on the cake.

The funny part is that between comparatively low votes and infighting between Agudat and Degel, Eichler's only gotten to sit as an MK for half a term in the Knessets where he's served (all the rebbes and Rosh Yeshivas want to have their own representatives in the Knesset, and for some reason Belz-- represented by Eichler-- seems to continually get the shaft).

The greatest revenge people could get on Eichler would be to encourage more UTJ voters to support another party. Send this would-be journalist back to his scandal rags.

[Skeptical]

"MK Eichler told Hotovely that by including Reform Jews in the committee, 'she marked herself as an enemy of the Haredi Judaism.' He further threatened that 'Hotovely would pay for her actions.'"

What is going to do? Send a bunch of thugs to beat her up? That's how Haredi handle dissent and disobedient women, right? I'm just waiting for the female circumcisions to start.

[Malka Gittel]

Eichler's peyos are curled too tight and they tug on his brain.

Who said let's see Reform join the IDF? As I recall, it's American Reform kids who make aliyah and join, at least according to their grandparents I've met.

[DS]

This is why I am a member of the Union for Traditional Judaism. Contemporary Orthodoxy itself, according to Professor Jacob Katz, and others, is itself a product of modernity, a response to the challenges posed by Reform Judaism. It is not traditional, nor is it halakhic, and it is repugnant in its abysmal treatment of those Jews, who despite their refusal to view halakha as binding, are nonetheless, in the words of R' Avi Weiss, "living, practicing, and studying Torah" in their own way. His attitude stems from an ideological basis of austritt- complete sectarianism and viewing non-Orthodox Jews as the Other (rooted in the thought of the supposedly "modern" Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch), which manifested itself in the infamous Haredi declaration banning the Synagogue Council of America back in the 60s, and in contemporary Orthodox refusal to engage in any transdenominational activities (with the notable exception of graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah). Ahavat Yisrael is truly lacking, and in its absence, thanks to the like of Yisroel Eichler, a soneh yisrael, we have no hope of meriting geulah. Shame on him and shame on all Orthodox who embody the same sectarian, parochial perspective.

[Jeff]

The problem, DS, is that Avi Weiss' community is strictly a New York phenomenon, and UTJ is largely so. If one lives elsewhere, one's choices are pretty limited.

[chicago sam]

Haredim are not practicing "Reform" Judaism, they are practicing "Deformed Judaism."

[Zoobiemanyak]

His peyes look like dildos. I find this man arousing my secret nether regions in a very orthodox and special way.