Notoriously Racist Chief Rabbi Tries To Block Females From Singing Songs Of Bereavement At Memorial

The ceremony memorializing fallen Israeli soldiers to be held tonight by the City of Safed in northern Israel has sparked controversy after the city’s racist and extremist chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, objected to allowing women to sing songs of bereavement – even though a woman sang at last year’s ceremony and Eliyahu participated anyway.

Chief Rabbi of Sefat Shmuel Eliyahu

Notoriously Racist Chief Rabbi Tries To Block Females From Singing Songs Of Bereavement At Memorial
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

The ceremony memorializing fallen Israeli soldiers to be held tonight by the City of Safed in northern Israel has sparked controversy after the city’s racist and extremist chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, objected to allowing women to sing songs of bereavement – even though a woman sang at last year’s ceremony and Eliyahu participated anyway, Ynet reported.

But this is year is somehow different – perhaps because Eliyahu and other hard right Zionist Orthodox haredi-dati-leumi rabbis have used the issue of women singing to attack the IDF.

Eliyahu walked out of a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony last week after a dance group of girls got up to perform. And now he wants to exclude women singers from the ceremony for fallen soldiers.

"I am not boycotting the ceremony. No one wants this whole thing to explode. We are looking for a way for everyone to find their place,” Eliyahu wrote to Safed’s secular mayor and bereaved parents.

But many do not accept Eliyahu’s claim – especially because at least two city council members, Gadi Malka and Rabbi Dov Kaplan, claimed late last month that Eliyahu had contacted them and asked them to boycott the memorial ceremony. Malka said at the time that he was unsure of what to do; Kaplan, however, said that he and his entire political party would boycott just as Eliyahu asked them to do.

Local bereaved parents are incensed at Eliyahu's meddling in a ceremony that had for decades been attended by the entire community and run in an open, egalitarian and respectful manner.

"We won't give up on women's singing. That will not happen. It hurts me that on this difficult day, in which the heart of the bereaved family members bleeds once again, people are arguing about whether a woman singer should perform or not, instead of talking about values and about giving to the state,” Sara Vaspi, chairwoman of the Safed branch of Yad Lebanim, the association of the families of fallen soldiers, said. Vaspi lost her first husband, a son and a nephew in Israel’s wars.

Vaspi's second husband, Yaakov Ben-Zichri, lost a son.

"The rabbi has no right to dictate my life. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't even have to come to the ceremony,” an angry Ben-Zichri told Ynet.

A son of a former Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel who was also a convicted terrorist seditionist, Eliyahu is widely despised in non-religious circles for his open racism against Arabs and other non-Jews. He tried to run for Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel in the last election but was warned by Israel’s attorney general that if he did run and win, the government would fight to have him disqualified and removed because of it.

Paradoxically, there are prominent lenient opinions in halakha (Jewish law) which allow men to hear women singing at religious ceremonies or in times of mourning. Those lenient opinions were issued primarily by Sefardi rabbis.

Comments

[jimmy]

Scott is now wearing the "rabbis" hat, issuing non existent halachik rulings.
Way to go Scott....

[Feminista]

Eliyahu sounds like the jerks in the Westboro Baptist church. Maybe he could join them. He would be doing Judaism a favor!

[Elisheva]

I've really been wondering this--what do the Haredim teach about Miriam dancing and singing after crossing the Red Sea? Or about Deborah and Barak singing the Song of Deborah after the victory?

Did our ancestors erect a mechitza in the middle of the desert? Did the women go several miles away so that the men wouldn't hear them? Is the story of Deborah, which features not only a woman singing but a woman exercising authority over a man to everyone's benefit, all just an allegory for how she really went home to cook and have babies?

[S M L]

Haredim share nothing with non-Haredim except perhaps ancestry to some extent. Not the same religion - not really. Different culture. Different values. Completely apart from (though unfortunately in close physical proximity to) all other Israelis. Given all that there can be no surprise in this Rabbi's behavior nor is there much to be done in response except to shake one's head in sadness and to wonder where it will all end for Israel.

[A. Nuran]

Because if a woman wails out her grief Orthodox Jews will want to jack off to the sound.

That's what they're saying.

I'm trying to imagine the level of perversion that's necessary to come up with that ruling.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Haredim share nothing with non-Haredim except perhaps ancestry to some extent.

SML, not that simple.
This dog, R' S. Eliahu is the son of R'M. Eliahu.
His father was a sefardi chief rabbi that dabbled in kabbala.
Politically, he (dad) was on the ultra right wing of then mafdal (now the party of Naftuli Bennet, the man with the micro yarmulke).
In his youth, R' M. Eliahu, (juniors father) was enrolled in a religious somewhat violent underground, that fact caused the raising of many eyebrows when he was elected to the office of chief rabbi.
The father also, often presented himself as a 'humble student' of chabad's Mamesh the 7th rebbe of them, the political affinity was on political extremism background.
To put it simply, Keliyaku Junior is not really a classic hareidi though he would accept the description as he would have a hard time associating with Bennet's micro yarmulke. (probably).

[S M L]

YBM: It's seldom simple, agreed. My point is once someone goes the full Haredi route he's mostly left the world the rest of us inhabit. Jewish or otherwise.

[David]

Who cares if he doesn't go? If ge did, it would only be to "keep up appearances" anyway.

[Alter Kocker]

If rebbe Eliayhu is so afraid of a stiffy, maybe he shouldn't be ogling the boys in mikvah.

[jimmy]

rabbi eliyahu is not chareidi.he studied at yeshivat mercaz harav a zionist yeshiv and served in the israeli army

[Yosef ben Matitya]

jimmy | May 04, 2014 at 07:07 PM

yes, not hareidi.
however same trash just the same. merkaz harav is not the re-iyah kook. It's a cookoos nest. A factory of messianic lunatics.