PSEUDO-RABBI CALLED YAIR LAPID AN "ANIMAL"

A rabbi working around Har Homa in Jerusalem said something most inciteful about Yesh Atid's chairman:

MK Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party is considering filing a police complaint against a rabbi who threatened Lapid and compared him to an animal, a party official said Thursday night.

Veteran Channel 1 religious affairs correspondent Uri Revach exclusively broadcast a clip Thursday night from Rabbi Eyal Amrami, the rabbi of a Sephardi synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Homa neighborhood, threatening Lapid.

“If [Lapid] continues what he is doing, God forbid, he has to know his career in the Jewish world is simply over,” Amrami said in the clip. “He will no longer be a part of the Jewish people. There will be no difference between him and an animal. If someone touches someone’s eye, they respond immediately and protect themselves.”

Yesh Atid responded that “It is unfortunate that there are those who are trying to drag down the legitimate dispute over how to equalize the burden of service to threats that can lead to people getting hurt.”

Lapid said he was not worried about such threats and he would “continue to lead the effort to equalize the burden of service, knowing that the citizens of the country must obey the law.”

Shas officials said Amrami was not connected to the party in any way. Amrami has made extremist statements in the past about religious Zionists.

This was not the first time a rabbi attacked Lapid. Last Saturday night Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef called Lapid contemptible and warned against including him in the coalition.

I think Lapid's party most definitely should file a complaint against Amrami for hatemongering just because he despises Yesh Atid's insistence that all Haredis share the same burdens of work and army service as the rest of the population. In fact, they could make an even better point of using cases like these as part of an informative advertising campaign on television, to let people know just what kind of representatives are running amok in the Haredi community. And not just during election campaigns. At all times. People have a right to know.