A more serious example of the contempt with which the chareidi
community is viewed, and the refusal to recognize its elementary
rights, such as was seen in the Knesset on Wednesday 3 Adar II has not
been seen for a long time.
MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni posed a Parliamentary question to the Minister of
Justice Yaakov Ne'eman, about the refusal of several communities of
various sizes to allow chareidim to live within them. Rabbi Gafni
cited Ramat Hashavim as an example, since they recently refused to
allow chareidim to go there to live for no other reason than their
being chareidim. Similar issues are raised in other areas and Rabbi
Gafni asked the Minister why his ministry has done nothing to address
this issue of racism and discrimination.
Minister Ne'eman replied from the Knesset podium that the assistant
attorney general told him that his office was not aware of any cases
of denial of entry to chareidim, and any instances should be reported
to his office and they will be dealt with properly.
Rabbi Gafni was astonished by this reply. "This is an outrage," he
said. "He is fooling you. He knows all about this and he even wrote me
a letter about it.
"Two and a half months ago I wrote a detailed letter to Atty Yehuda
Weinstein, the Attorney General, with all the facts in the case of
Ramat Hashavim. It took two months until I received a reply. I can
only imagine what would have happened if it had been an Arab or an
Ethiopian family that had been refused residence in this settlement.
Would the Attorney General have dared wait two months, and would he
have answered that the case is not criminal but merely a social and
educational issue? I would like to see if a mayor like the mayor of
Kiryat Malachi, who said last week that he would not allow any
chareidim to live in his city, would last one day if he had said that
he would not allow Russians or Arabs to live there."
In reply the Minister of Justice asked to see a copy of the
correspondence and promised to check it out thoroughly. Reuven Rivlin,
the speaker of the Knesset, also said that the Knesset would follow up
on this serious issue.
