JERUSALEM (JTA) — A controversial West Bank rabbi now living in eastern Jerusalem reportedly said the attacks in Paris were punishment for what Europe did to Jews in the Holocaust.
Rabbi Dov Lior, the former chief rabbi of the Kiryat Arba settlement, made his remarks during a eulogy on Sunday at the Jerusalem funeral for a father and son killed in a West Bank terror attack, according to the Hebrew-language news website Srugim and The Jerusalem Post, which cited the Hebrew-language Walla! news website.
“The wicked ones in blood-soaked Europe deserve it for what they did to our people 70 years ago,” Lior said, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Lior moved from Kiryat Arba to the Mount of Olives in eastern Jerusalem several months ago.
In 2011, police questioned the rabbi over his support for the scholarly book “The King’s Torah,” which reportedly discusses situations in which it is permissible for Jews to kill non-Jews.
Lior is also known for saying that Jews should not rent homes to Arabs in Israel and for a proposal calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to remove Jews from West Bank settlements.
In the terror attack, Rabbi Yaakov Litman, 40, and his son Netanel, 18, were killed on Friday afternoon as seven members of the family drove to a Shabbat pre-wedding celebration of their daughter and sister. Litman’s wife and 16-year-old son also were injured. Three daughters — ages 5, 9, and 11 — were treated for shock.
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