Justice Minister Dov Joseph reported to the Knesset last night that Supreme Court Justice Chaim Cohen has expressed regret that his recent remarks comparing the rabbinic definition of a Jew with the Nazi racist Nuremburg laws had given some people the impression that it was his intention “to disparage the Jewish religion.”
Dr. Joseph told the Israel Parliament that he did not intend to accede to the suggestion of the Agudat Israel and Poale Agudat Israel deputies that Justice Cohen be brought before a disciplinary court. He said that the Jurist’s remarks, delivered before the recent American Jewish Congress Dialogue in Israel, were apparently taken out of context and created a false impression.
In his remarks at the Dialogue which 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 Nuremburg laws should, because of an alleged sacrosanct Jewish tradition, become the basis for official determination or rejection of Jewishness in the State of Israel.”
Dr. Joseph informed the Knesset that Justice Cohen had expressed his regret over the statement in a letter to Supreme Court President Yitzhak Olshan as soon as he saw his remarks reported in the press. “Anyone who heard his whole lecture,” Mr. Joseph declared, “knew that nothing was further from his mind than to insult the Jewish religion.” He said that nobody familiar with Justice Cohen’s views or Judgments on the excellence of Jewish law and the possibility of adjusting it to the needs of the State would suspect him of any such intention.
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