JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Former Israeli international soccer player Eyal Berkowitz aroused a furious response after he lashed out at chareidim over the weekend, calling them “loafers” who “don’t pay taxes” and are “detached from the nation.”
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Berkowitz spoke on his television program on Channel 12 and spoke scathingly about chareidim: “They are Jews? They’re a shame and disgrace,” he said. “They are detached from the people, they don’t interest them. These are the people who are going to run the country and tell me and you and everyone what to do. They are detached, they read the Torah all day, don’t go to work, don’t pay taxes, don’t go to the army. Idlers.”
Berkowitz’s diatribe led to numerous irate responses from chareidi journalists and politicians. MK Moshe Gafni said that “Berkowitz is totally detached from the people and lives in a bubble created by some journalists. It would be interesting to know the last time he met a chareidi person, since he knows how they live and what they do. Before he opens his mouth to spew invective against a large community in Israel, he should do his homework about what he is fulminating over. A kid in Talmud Torah first grade knows more than him in any subject and he should show some respect for this community.
Journalist Avishai Greenzeig called Berkowitz a “small, disgusting incitor. The minimum demanded from channel 12 is to suspend this foul-mouthed guy, maybe he can find employment in De Sturmer.
Agudah leader Yitzchak Goldknopf also expressed his “shock and revulsion” at Berkowitz’s word, stating that “if it had not been said in Hebrew one would have thought it is part of a propaganda piece from an antisemitic channel abroad.”
Religious Zionism leaders Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir also sharply criticized Berkowitz’s statement. Smotrich wrote that “such antisemitic statements were cast at the Jewish people by the worst of its enemies. It is a shame and disgrace that here in Israel on the screen such vitriolic incitement is heard about the chareidi public, which contributes hugely to Israel through its numerous chesed organizations and studying Torah to preserve Jewish tradition and more and more involvement in the IDF and in the employment sector.”
Berkowitz’s statements were already seen abroad and one Israeli chareidi from New York wrote that it had persuaded him to purchase a plane ticket and come to vote.
In a related story: the sun rose this morning in the east, and will set tonight in the west.
The part where he said they don’t go to the army or work that is detrimental to Israel. What is wrong what he said?? Is the facts not like that? What happens when Israel has a majority that does not go to the army nor work. Who would defend Israel and then you would force half the people to work, while take their taxes to support the other half that does not work.
If you think Israel can survive like that you would be sticking your head in the sand. Learning itself never saved us, not in the pogroms, not in WWII and not in Israel. When Arabs come to your border with guns, do you really think we should take out Thillems and say certain kapitilach to ward them off. Moshe Rabenu put together an army and we should slao. Everyone must do his part to defend our land. Period!
Apparently this bloated baffoon was hit in the head once to often. But at least the last cries of Jew hatred are coming to an end with the religious population ever increasing Now they need to vote
And the frum
Party corruption needs to stop
These haters are the type who fight against little boys wearing yarmulkes which in one current case ended in murder.In June, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Golan v. Saada that Narkis Golan, a domestic abuse survivor who fled Italy to the U.S. with her child, couldn’t be forced to return her young son to his allegedly abusive father, Isacco Jacky Saada. Four months later, on Wednesday evening, the 32-year-old mother was found dead in her home.
Why didn’t the lady sitting next to him stop him from his diatribe?
Let him go back to GERMANY, oh, he’s not German? Could have fooled me !!!
will he be starting an israeli branch of yaffed?