Rabbi invokes Holocaust at torched mosque
A top Israeli rabbi invoked the Holocaust on Monday as he deplored an arson attack against a mosque in the occupied West Bank blamed on hardline Jewish settlers, Agence France-Presse reports.
"Seventy years ago, the Holocaust, the biggest tragedy of our history, began with the torchings of synagogues during Kristallnacht," Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, said as he stood in front of the mosque in this village in the northern West Bank.
Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, was the 1938 pogrom during which Germans ransacked synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses.
Metzger had come to Yasuf to protest against the vandalism of the village mosque on Friday, when assailants, suspected to be hardline settlers angry over a temporary moratorium on settlement construction, sprayed hate messages in Hebrew and burned Korans, AFP reports.
He expressed hope that his visit would help to ease tensions. But as he spoke, protected by Palestinian police forces, AFP reports, dozens of protesters blocked the entrance to the mosque, chanting "No peace with settlements."
