A few members of a fervently Orthodox group were to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York.
Members of Neturei Karta were expected to meet Tuesday with the Iranian president. The group has had a longstanding relationship with Ahmadinejad, and met with him last year when he was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
Neturei Karta members have made several trips to Iran to consult with Ahmadinejad, and in December attended a Holocaust revisionist conference in Tehran sponsored by the Iranian leader.
Neturei Karta’s spokesman, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, has claimed repeatedly that Zionism is at odds with Jewish law and that Israel is responsible for much of the conflict in the Middle East.
The Orthodox Union denounced the meeting.
“These are the same individuals who had the audacity to attend Mr. Ahmadinejad’s conference held last winter denying the truth of the Holocaust,” said the O.U.’s president, Stephen Savitsky, and executive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, in a statement issued Tuesday. “We hope by now the world understands that these individuals represent no one but themselves, have no constituency, have no following in the Jewish community and are a disgrace to the values and history of the Jewish People.”
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