High Court of Justice judges, President Esther Hayut and Justices Yitzhak Amit and Alex Stein, unanimously ruled today (Monday) that the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General must bring the rabbi of Safed, the rabbi of the city of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, to disciplinary proceedings. For statements he made condemning the Arab public, as well as statements on political issues.
On the other hand, the judges ruled that the rabbi would not be subject to disciplinary action for statements made by Rabbi Eliyahu on halachic issues, such as the prohibition on renting apartments to foreigners.
The petition against Rabbi Eliyahu was filed in 2016 by the Reform Center for Religion and State, the Tag Meir Forum, the Headquarters to Combat Racism in Israel, and the Association for Civil Rights.
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In the ruling, Judge Stein stated: "It appears, prima facie, that several of his public statements, although not all, crossed the red line that separates what a city rabbi is permitted to say and publish in public and what he is prohibited from saying and publishing in public, as a city rabbi.".
""These prohibited statements, their number, and the long timeline over which they unfold - which leads us to 2020 - indicate that the alternative disciplinary measure, with which respondents 2-1 were content, which included, as stated, clarifying conversations and warnings, and nothing more, was not helpful and did not provide an appropriate response to the rabbi's conduct.".
In the ruling, Judge Stein cited three examples of statements against the Arab public for which Rabbi Eliyahu should be subject to disciplinary action.
In addition, Judge Stein provided several examples of Rabbi Eliyahu's "problematic political statements," including things he said in an interview he gave to Galei Tzahal, on the question of who, in his opinion, should lead the religious right: "Bennett has zero backbone in matters of Judaism. He cannot be the head of the Jewish Home, he can be part - if he accepts the leadership of Rabbi Peretz.""
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu's office issued a statement in response to the ruling: ""This is a political court. If it were about the freedom of speech of their people - there is no problem presenting a guillotine or a prime minister on a noose. If it were about rabbis or religious people - they would bend the law to abolish this fundamental right. We will not stop speaking. We will not stop telling the truth. We have no trust in this court.".
