Israel’s Reform movement expressed outrage after a former chief rabbi of Israel suggested that the Holocaust was the result of Reform Judaism in Germany. Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a former Sephardi chief rabbi, told a fervently Orthodox radio station last week that Jews as a whole were not to blame for the Holocaust, “but the Reform movement started in Germany, those who changed the religion began in Germany. And because it is written that God was angered, even He did not differentiate among the righteous, and it was done.” Members of The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism said in a statement that “Rabbi Eliyahu’s statements are no less serious than Holocaust denial, and the Israeli public must respond accordingly. The public in Israel has had enough of rabbis’ cursings.” Other groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Agency for Israel, also condemned the Eliyahu’s comments.
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