Amid Uproar, Two Rabbis Reverse Course on Renting to Non-Jews

By Yair Ettinger (Haaretz) December 9, 2010

Two municipal chief rabbis decided on Thursday to remove their signatures from a religious ruling forbidding Israeli Jews from renting homes to gentiles.

Dozens of Israel’s municipal chief rabbis had signed on to the letter, which came just months after the chief rabbi of Safed initiated a call urging Jews to refrain from renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.

Rabbi Simcha HaCohen Kook and Rabbi Yaakov Edelstein said they decided to remove their names from the letter because they did not agree with its content.

However, their decision is probably related to a statement made by leading rabbi of Israel’s non-Hasidic Orthodox sector, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who denounced earlier on Thursday the religious ruling.

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