The Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, rejected today by a vote of 38 to 23 an opposition motion for a general debate over recent remarks by Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohen, in which the jurist compared the rabbinic definition of a Jew with the Nazi racist Nuremberg laws.
In his remarks at a recent American Jewish Congress Dialogue in Israel which had aroused strong criticism in religious quarters, Justice Cohen had declared: “It is one of the bitterest ironies of the State that the same racist approach that was propagated by the Nazis and characterized the infamous Nuremberg laws should, because of an alleged sacrosanct Jewish tradition, become the basis for official determination or rejection of Jewishness in the State of Israel.”
In the discussion in the House over the proposal for the debate, Minister of Justice Dov Joseph conceded that Justice Cohen had erred in the sharpness of his expression, “and certainly should not have made the comparison he did.” He declared, however, that general debate in the Knesset would further publicize the “regrettable remarks.”
Rabbi Shlomo Lorinoz, the Agudat Israel member who proposed the motion for debate, characterized Justice Ochen’s remarks as “abusing” and “insulting to the Jewish religion.” Referring to a letter to the Chief Justice in which Justice Cohen said that extreme expressions were used “to emphasize that which requires extreme emphasis,” Rabbi Lorinoz said this indicated that Justice Cohen stands by his view that that part of the Jewish tradition which is Israeli law today is “Nazi racist law.”
Liberal Knesset Member S.J. Abramov, whose party abstained in the vote, expressed “grief and astonishment” that a Supreme Court Justice had criticized the fundamental law of the State. He said Justice Cohen’s remarks were “a deep insult to the secularites” no less than to the religious portion of the populace, and urged public figures to refrain from controversial issues. He said his party abstained so as not to undermine the prestige of Israeli judges.
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