A top haredi lawmaker excoriated Finance Minister Avidgor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) and Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel (New Hope) Wednesday afternoon, after the two called on Israeli Chief Rabbi David Lau to resign his position.
United Torah Judaism chairman MK Moshe Gafni lambasted the two ministers, in particular Liberman, calling him a ‘borderline anti-Semite.’
“Liberman is so outrageously insolent, it borders on anti-Semitism,” Gafni said during an address in the Knesset plenum.
“What did Liberman ever learn in his life, other than how to steal? What does he know? What does Yoaz Hendel know? The Chief Rabbi won’t do what they tell him to, only what the Torah says. Rabbi Lau won’t make rulings based on what you want.”
“You’re losers. Take your shoes off before you speak about the Chief Rabbi, you brats.”
On Tuesday, Liberman and Hendel slammed Rabbi Lau’s decision not to authorize state conversions, in protest of the termination of attorney Rabbi Moshe Valler, who currently heads the state conversion system.
Rabbi Lau protested the decision not to retain Rabbi Valler in his position, and the conversion reform plan being advanced by Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahane (Yamina).
“Unfortunately, this step is part of this dangerous process of advancing a new conversion law that is currently on the agenda. I repeat and stress: the new outline for conversions will cause a significant rift in the Jewish People which will be impossible to repair… In the future, Jews will be forced to contend with the question of “Who is a Jew?” – who may one marry, and who one may not, G-d forbid,” Rabbi Lau wrote.