Yotam Berger Notre Dame Fire May Be Divine Punishment, Says Prominent Settler Rabbi
The conflagration at Notre Dame de Paris that badly damaged the ancient cathedral on Monday was possibly divine punishment, an influential Israeli rabbi said on Wednesday, invoking a 13th-century burning of Jewish scriptures.
Addressing the fire at the 856-year-old church in Paris in a Q&A article published on religious-Zionist Israeli news website Srugim, French-born Shlomo Aviner, now the rabbi of West Bank settlementBeit El, also said it is a mitzvah - a deed done from religious duty- to set fire to churches in Israel, but warned that shouldn't be done anyway, because they would then have to be rebuilt.Asked if the fire at Notre Dame was cause for grief, Aviner said "that isn't our function at this time. There is no command to seek out Christianchurches beyond Israel and burn them down. In our holy land, things are more complicated. Indeed the Rabbi of Satmar wrote that one of his reasons against immigration to Israel is that here the command to burn churches applies but it isn't exercised," and therefore being in Israel without burning churches is prohibited.
He added that the rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher said that building churches, "which we'll have to do" should they be burnt, is a greater offense than leaving them as is.
Gadi Gvariyahu of the Tag Meir nongovernmental organization, which monitors hate crimes in Israel and the West Bank and promotes interfaith dialogue, called Aviner's remarks "sad, angering and shocking."
"If an influential rabbi says 'there is no command to seek out Christian churches abroad and burn them down but in our holy land, the issue is more complicated' – what will the extreme right be likely to do?" Gvariyahu added.
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