R. Yosef Mizrachi Attacked For Racism

From change.org:

We, the undersigned, protest the visit of the preacher Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi to the UK.
Rabbi Mizrachi is on record as expressing a variety of highly offensive, bigoted and hateful views:
A. That Downs Syndrome children and those with autism are being punished for their sins in a previous life for gossiping, “measure for measure” and are here to suffer.
B. That due to not being correctly religious, secular Jewish women acted without concern for their modesty at the gas chambers during the Holocaust.
C. Engaging in a [racist] form of Holocaust denial by challenging the Jewish status of five million souls who perished.
D. That Sephardic Jews were spared much of the Holocaust because Reform started in Germany, a demonstrably false claim in view of the decimation of the Sephardic population of the Balkans.
E. That children who are born with blindness are being punished for watching pornography in previous lives.
F. That women contract breast and cervix cancers as a result of sexual licentiousness.
G. That men contract prostate and brain cancers as a result of sexual licentiousness and what he calls “dirty thoughts”.
H. The racist accusation that crime has increased in America as the result of the emancipation of African-Americans.
I. That homosexuals are being punished for having chosen to be gay in a previous life.
J. That people cease to be religious because they are influenced by gay university professors.
K. That totalitarian laws should be imposed as a result of terrorism.
L. That the problem with the European far right is not their views, but that they detest Jews as well as Muslims.
M. The racist view that all Chinese people look the same.
We consider these views to be cultish, divisive and contemptible.
When criticised, Rabbi Mizrachi attacks his critics personally in the most intemperate ad hominem language, likening them to wicked Biblical figures such as “Amalek”, “Korach” and “Haman” or, sickeningly, as “worse than Hitler”. Videos of his more controversial statements are routinely removed in order to enable claims that they were “taken out of context”.
His remarks on the Holocaust and other matters provoked strong condemnation from the Novominsker Rebbe, the president of the ultra-orthodox Agudath Israel of America, resulting in a rare apology.
He was also forced to publicly disavow remarks he made about the Chabad movement, suggesting that they were hypocritical and greedy enough to praise a serious criminal, as long as they received a donation of $1,000.
Rabbi Mizrachi intends to visit the UK again on the 16th-19th of September. His last visit to the UK in 2014 was covered by the Jewish Chronicle and led to criticism of his views by two leading London rabbis, concerned at invitations to allow him to speak in a local synagogue and to school children.
The signatories of this petition condemn his views and, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in its efforts to distance itself from extremism and condemn racism, ignorant bigotry and intolerance in whatever form it presents itself.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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