Last night, the mosque in Tuba Zangaria, a village directly to the east of Safed and to the north of the Kinneret, was set ablaze. Inside the mosque, the words “Price Tag” were scrawled. The Israeli government’s response was immediate condemnation of what appears to be a religious based hate crime. According to the article on YNETNews:

A statement issued on behalf of the prime minister said: “Netanyahu was outraged when he saw the photos and said the act went against the State of Israel’s values. Freedom of religion and freedom to worship are supreme values.”

In any civilized state and for any civilized people, such an action is an outrage. For Jews, it is an outrage. The Reform movement in Israel was swift to condemn the act:

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism called on Israel’s religious leaders, first and foremost the rabbis, to condemn the “price tag” phenomenon in a resolved manner.

“This isn’t a marginal act of hooliganism, this is the ongoing growth of a phenomenon that receives the silent approval of the community and rabbinic leadership,” he claimed.

No religious Jew should stand for this kind of action. The words constantly on the tongue of the Jew, “Remember that you were a stranger in the land of Egypt,” should alone bring that understanding, but if not then “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and the great dictum of Hillel, “Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you,” certainly should.

Our history has taught us that when mosques burn, synagogues and churches burn. When mosques burn, the world does not become a better place. It becomes a darker place just as it does when synagogues and churches burn. The “price tag” for acting out of sinat-hinam, blind hatred, in the Jewish tradition was the destruction of the Temple. If we allow sinat-hinam to flow unchecked, it will threaten the Jewish state as well.

We Are For Israel stands alongside the government of Israel in strong condemnation of this action and hopes that not only will those who committed the crime be brought to justice, but that those who encourage such actions through hate-speech will be held to account as well.

May the new Jewish year be a year that sees Shalom increase in our world and that brings peace and security to all of the people of Israel. Amen v’Amen.

****Addendum****

The Chief Rabbis of Israel condemned the mosque attack and all “price tag” attacks unequivocally. See this article from Israel National News.