Fury after Israeli minister likens intermarriage among diaspora Jews to ‘second Holocaust’

‘It alienates so many members of our community. This kind of baseless comparison does little other than inflame and offend’

Israel's education minister Rafi Peretz arrives to attend the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem (Reuters)

Israel’s new education minister has likened intermarriage among diaspora Jews to the Holocaust in a recent cabinet meeting, sparking uproar.

A spokesman for Rafi Peretz, who is a former chief rabbi of Israel’s army, confirmed that he said that “assimilation is like the Holocaust” in the 1 July session.

The comments were first reported by US-based news website Axios.

The outlet said the head of the United Right, an alliance of right-wing religious nationalist parties, was speaking after a briefing by Dennis Ross, a former senior official in the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations, about trends within Jewish communities around the world and global antisemitism.

Axios reported that Mr Peretz said the rate of intermarriage among the American Jewish community was “like a second Holocaust” after ministers discussed the growing instances of marriages between Jews and non-Jews in the US.

The inflammatory comments have piled pressure on relations between Israel’s Orthodox community and the more liberal streams within the United States’ Jewish population.

Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a US-based pro-Israel organisation that aims to fight antisemitism, tweeted: “It’s inconceivable to use the term ‘Holocaust’ to describe Jews choosing to marry non-Jews.”

He added: “It alienates so many members of our community. This kind of baseless comparison does little other than inflame and offend.”

Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation – a US-based Jewish organisation that aims to strengthen the relationship between Israel and the US – told Israeli media it is “irresponsible and disrespectful to talk about US Jews without talking with them”.

“Israel’s government has a moral responsibility to maintain and improve the country’s relationship with diaspora Jews in general, and with the American Jewish community in particular,” he said in a statement quoted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

He added: “A conversation between the sides is needed. But this requires time and planning, not random comments detached from an ongoing, respectful discourse.”

Israeli media said that Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s energy minister, “pushed back” on Mr Peretz’s remarks and said Israel needed “to stop disregarding and looking down on Jews in America that see themselves as Jews not only religiously but even more culturally and historically”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly concluded the conversation saying that a growing number of American Jews are drifting away from Jewish traditions.

It is not the first time that far-right politicians in Israel have likened assimilation to the Holocaust.

Haaretz reported that last year Uri Ariel, Israel’s agriculture minister and a member of Jewish Home, part of the United Right, sent a letter to employees discussing the “assimilation Holocaust” that stated: “During the Holocaust, we’ve lost about six million Jews. Without at all comparing the two, we’re losing a part of our people to assimilation.”