JERUSALEM: Dozens more Israeli rabbis have added their names to a document calling on Jews to avoid renting or selling property to non-Jews, despite an outpouring of criticism, local media reported on Thursday.
Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported that some 300 religious figures had signed the public statement, which warns that "it is forbidden in the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a foreigner."
The document first emerged Tuesday and was swiftly condemned in most corners of Israeli society, from rabbinical groups and rights organizations to politicians including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The statement calls for those who rent or sell property to non-Jews to be ostracized by the larger community.
"After someone sells or rents just one flat, the value of all the neighboring flats drops… He who sells or rents (to non-Jews) causes his neighbours a big loss and his sin is great."
"Anyone who sells (property to a non-Jew) must be cut off!!"
The document initially attracted the signatures of dozens of rabbis, most of them state-employed religious figures who minister to Jewish communities in town and cities throughout Israel.
It attracted immediate and widespread condemnation, including a demonstration of around 150 people on Wednesday outside Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue
"This kind of speech should be banned in a Jewish and democratic state that respects Jewish tradition and the Bible," Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has called on Netanyahu to discipline state-employed rabbis who signed the letter, and Arab-Israeli lawmaker Mohammed Barakeh called for a legal investigation.
Yediot Ahranoth said Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein had yet to decide whether the document could be considered incitement to racism and subject to a criminal investigation.
Speaking to Haaretz newspaper, the speaker of Israel’s parliament said the statement "damages the foundations of the state of Israel."
"I see this general statement as an embarrassment to the Jewish people, and another nail in the coffin of Israeli democracy," Reuven Rivlin said.
The letter emerged as tensions grow between religious Jewish and Arab-Israeli residents of the northern town of Safed, where local rabbi Shmuel Eliahu has called on Jews to avoid renting or selling property to Arabs.
Safed’s college attracts Arab-Israeli students from the surrounding area, many of whom seek accommodation in the town while studying.
Israel has 1.3 million Arab citizens — Palestinians who remained in the country after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 and their descendants.
