Rafi Peretz made the statement at a cabinet meeting on July 1, Axios reported Tuesday, citing three people who were in the room.
Peretz, a former chief rabbi of the Israeli army, is the leader of the Union of Right Wing Parties bloc.
Peretz said the assimilation of Jews around the world and mostly in the US was "like a second Holocaust," and also said that, due to intermarriages in the last 70 years, the Jewish people "lost 6 million people," according to the report, which added that Peretz's spokesman confirmed the account.
Comment: Because to rabbis like Peretz, a Jew choosing to marry a Gentile is the same thing as a Jew being executed by Nazis. Try to wrap your head around that one. (Warning: it is probably only possible after years of instruction in the Talmud.) It's rabbis and politicians like Peretz who are some of the real enemies of the Jewish people.
The July 1 cabinet meeting included a briefing by Dennis Ross, chairman of the board of the Jewish People Policy Institute, on trends in Jewish communities around the world, especially in North America. The topic of intermarriage came up during the briefing.
Axios reported that Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) pushed back against Peretz's remarks.
"First we need to stop disregarding and looking down on Jews in America that see themselves as Jews not only religiously but even more culturally and historically," he reportedly said.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, was among the American Jewish leaders critical of Peretz's remarks.
"It's inconceivable to use the term 'Holocaust' to describe Jews choosing to marry non-Jews. It trivializes the Shoah," Greenblatt tweeted. "It alienates so many members of our community. This kind of baseless comparison does little other than inflame and offend."
The Ruderman Family Foundation, which has taken Israeli politicians on tours of American Jewish communities in recent years, condemned Peretz's remarks as "irresponsible and disrespectful."
"Israel's government has a moral responsibility to maintain and improve the country's relationship with Diaspora Jews in general, and with the American Jewish community in particular. It is irresponsible and disrespectful to talk about US Jews without talking with them," the foundation's president, Jay Ruderman, said in the statement.
"I call upon all of Israel's leaders, and especially those in office, to dedicate time and resources to learn more about the American Jewish community, its life and its challenges. A conversation between the sides is needed. But this requires time and planning, not random comments detached from an ongoing, respectful discourse."
The American Jewish Congress also condemned his remarks as "offensive and unhelpful."
"Assimilation challenges Jewish continuity and Diaspora identification with Israel and must be grappled with. Minister Peretz's comments, however, are offensive and unhelpful," the AJC said.
Reader Comments
1905 - New York Times, November 1st, 1905
From 1800 to 1902 he caused 6,000,000 Jewish families to be expelled from Russia ...
1906 - New York Times, March 25th, 1906
... the condition and future of Russia's 6,000,000 Jews were made on March 12 in Berlin
1911 - Max Nordeau, The Jewish Criterion (Pittsburgh), September 1st, 1911, page 3
... the downfall of six million creatures ... for no war has ever yet destroyed six million human lives
1911 - New York Times, October 31st, 1911
The 6,000,000 Jews of Russia are singled out for systematic oppression
1913 - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (IN), October 18th, 1913, page 4
There are six million Jews in Russia and the government is anxious to annihilate them
1915 - The Jewish Criterion (Pittsburgh), June 25th, 1915
The annihilation of the six million Jews now congregated in the Russian domains goes on
1916 - The Tacoma Times, February 28th, 1916
... there were 6,000,000 Jews in Europe absolutely without food or resources
1919 - El Paso Herald., April 7th, 1919
... to save from starvation six million Jews who are the helpless victims of the German Terror
1926 - Canadian Jewish Review, April 9th, 1926, page 4
" ... the extreme need of 6,000,000 Jews in Russia and Poland
1937 - Jewish Western Bulletin, December 31st, 1937
The number six million is often used to describe the Jewish population of Central and Eastern Europe
1939 - The Daily Sentinel (Rome, NY), January 31st, 1939, page 11
Does Mr. X really believe that if Hitler gains control of Spain with the help of Franco, that life in Spain will be any different than it is today in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia where 6,000,000 Jews have been murdered, ...
1943 - Lowell Sun (MA), January 26th, 1943, page 9
"Of these six million Jews, almost a third have already been massacred by Germans, Rumanians and Hungarians
1943 - The Guardian, January 27th, 1943, page 4
"A PROPOSAL TO SAVE THE JEWS ... Some six million lives remained in imminent peril."
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I like your intentional abstruseness.
But can abstruseness/abstrusity ever be said to be UN-intentional?
As SF wittily notes below: "Film at Eleven."*
R.C.
*And to which RC (hopefully humorously) adds: "Video at Twelve."**
** Another RC true fact(oid)***: Most remember hearing some TV Man say, "It's Eleven P.m. Do you know where I children are?" As I've read somewhere, that was first uttered on one of our three Orlando TV station newscasts and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I heard its first utterance in that fashion, as I've always been a newshound, and night owl,
Back then I suspected, but did not know, that there was an intentional gulf between the truth and what the PTB's MSM told me. I knew the street and witnessed many 'reported-on' events that were subsequently totally butchered by the MSM- but only much later did I realize just how wide, as you know, that gap had become - it makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in a sidewalk!
*** But aren't factoids merely small facts, and therefore presumed true? No film, no video. Not at 11, 12, nor even with the Early 10p news. Nada! Nothing!
RC
I think Nancy Pelosi is unintentionally abstruse
The small hats are so sick they use the bodies of their own as a shield. The ultimate in 'do as thou wilt'
They hide in and behind their brothers with small hats, who are in all practical purposes just normal humans.
Link is to his videos page - the video to watch is "Remembering the Holocaust" on the top row ... well worth the watch
The video was originally live streamed on You Tube but I think he removed it afterwards
Wait, which European leader was trying to do that over 80 years ago?