Novominsker Rebbe Condemns Holocaust Comments of Rabbi on Video Publicized by Matzav.com

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Novominsker RebbeIn response to a Matzav.com report about a video of a controversial rabbi regarding the scope of the Holocaust, the Hamodia newspaper published a strongly-worded editorial in today’s edition.

“In his ill-informed statement,” the editorial says, “for which he only recently apologized and admitted his ignorance of basic statistics, the rabbi made the egregious assertion that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis, historically known to be six million, was in reality closer to one million. Only. One million souls — one million worlds. That’s significantly more than the sum total of every single religious Jew — man, woman, and child — living today in the United States of America.”

This statement, notwithstanding explanation and apology, has already created unimaginable damage, says the newspaper, and who can calculate the future adverse ramifications of such an irresponsible statement for the world at large?

“With such a statement, he has, presumably inadvertently, joined the infamous league of Holocaust deniers, whose goal is to rewrite history,” says the Hamodia editorial. “This is not only an injustice to the Six Million Kedoshim; it is an injustice to all of us, their heirs, whose lives are dedicated to rebuilding a world that was destroyed so brutally. While he explained that his intention was to draw attention to the burning spiritual holocaust that has consumed Klal Yisrael with increasing intensity since the Second World War, and that assimilation and intermarriage in Europe rendered many of those who are counted within the Six Million not to have been halachically Jewish, both the insult and the danger that his outrageous words caused cannot be so easily healed or reversed.”

The Novominsker Rebbe, Rav Yaakov Perlow, said in a statement released to Hamodia: “I condemn in the strongest terms possible the outrageous claim that fewer than a million halachic Jews were killed in the Holocaust. This claim is demonstrably false, profoundly offensive and extremely hurtful. It is an affront to the Six Million Kedoshim, precious, holy, Jewish souls whose lives were snuffed out by the sonei Yisroel. Minimizing the degree of the terrible destruction of Churban Europa, in a most morally irresponsible manner, does a grave disservice to truth, and only gives enemies of Klal Yisrael ammunition for their lies.”

The editorial continues: “As the rebbe said, the statements made by this speaker are not only offensive, but totally unsubstantiated. There can be no doubt as to the bona fide Jewishness of the Six Million. While secularization was indeed rampant by 1939, in Eastern Europe, the power of the church and anti-Semitism most likely prevented any noteworthy amount of intermarriage from occurring. Even the members of the most overtly anti-religious and popular movements such as Zionism, Communism, Socialism and even Bundism remained Jews. Assimilation, as we know it in American terms, was simply not an option. So the point is not the precise number of Orthodox victims (now estimated to be between a third and a half of more than 3 million Jews in Poland alone) but the total number of Jewish victims, whose halachic Jewishness is not a question.”

These comments went unchallenged for so long, the newspaper says later, despite the fact that the speech was made before engaged Jews. “Apparently, the audience was so ignorant and desensitized that his statements were received without objection. How many Jews, particularly of the younger generations and those whose family history spared them the horrors of the Holocaust, have familiarity with even the basic facts and the gruesome reality of what befell the Jewish People during those dark days? It is our obligation to ensure that the current and future generations of Jews know the truth.”

{Gavriel Sitrit-Matzav.com Newscenter}


28 COMMENTS

  1. Bekitzur, Matzav got slammed for taking a stand and as it turns out the gedolim said Matxzav was right. SO maybe people owe matzav an apology

  2. But they all agree that a good portion of the 6 Million were not Halachakly Jewish. So who cares about the exact details,. The tragedy of the Holocaust does not become a bit diminished, just because many that were killed, were not Halachekly Jewish. They were all precious Human Beings. We should really concentrate on the multitudes of boys that are constantly going OTD

  3. It just may be that his audience allowed this horrible lie to pass because the victims were “nisht fin inzere”.
    Klal Yisroel has to know that they are one body. Many of us need to improve our feelings of empathy towards our fellow Jew. Every Jew is a Chelek Elokei Memasl Mamesh!

  4. The Rabbi spoke about it at length in Lakewood the other night. He said that the video (which comes from a few years ago – one has to wonder why it just became an issue now?) came from anti-Torah people, who edited it to make it look worse than the actual remarks were. He apologized already. He is Sephardic so does not not know as much about the Holocaust as we Ashkenazim do.

    It is only proper to let him defend and explain himself in his own words, without editing and distorting them. Then people can deliberate about it, but to not allow him to defend himself is a terrible violation of elementary justice.

  5. What he says about the non religious women going to the gas is beyond despicable. How does he explain that one that he was misquoted I listened to it a few times I couldn’t believe what I was hearing

  6. now that a jew questioned the numbers, all the holocaust deniers will quote him saying even their own people question the numbers. besides down playing the holocaust is not the way to make jews come back to their roots.

  7. MATZAV didn’t get slammed for taking a stand, what upset people was that MATZAV publicized this video in the first place and then fanned the flames by carrying on and on about it even after the apology was made.

  8. So what do you want the Rabbi to do? He apologized already. Kill himself in the public square? If you are all so “concerned”, why didn’t you all say anything for the last 10+ years its been on his website??? This is all a vendetta by certain people who will get whats coming to them.

  9. Did Matzav ask the Rabbi rishus before printing, yet another hit piece to inflict hurt and harm on him?! Don’t try to hide behind Rabbi Perlow! I give you an Eyen Hora that you should experience severe shalom bayis problems and you should become so poor that you will be forced to eat out of an animal trough! Cursed be you and your Parents who beget such evil children! You are a RASHA ben RASHA!

  10. To Info (Comment #9),

    For your “Information”, his apology was almost as bad as his original statement. He said people took it out of context and that in another place in the video, he says, that maybe 5, or 1 million were killed, but we’ll never know. There is no doubt that there were 6,000,000 or very close to that figure. Trying to “farentfer” is NO apology. Give him a pass because he is Sephardi? Gimme a break. That’s NO excuse. Are you implying that only a Sephardi would say such a thing? No decent human being should say such a thing. As Dr. Katz, a holocaust survivor living in N.Y., in a video just said: “As survivors, we cannot accept his apology.” If Holocaust survivors won’t accept his apology, how can we?

  11. I would like to propose a Tefilah, Psalms 41 verse 3, to prevent Dear Matzav from an ayin hora.
    Hashem will guard him and keep him alive; he will be praised throughout the land; You will not deliver him to the desires of his enemies.
    Continued Hatzlachah to the worthy endeavors of all parties.

  12. I would like to propose a Tefilah, Psalms 41 verse 3, to prevent Dear Matzav from an ayin hora.
    Hashem will guard him and keep him alive; he will be praised throughout the land; You will not deliver him to the desires of his enemies.
    Continued Hatzlachah to the worthy endeavors of all parties.

  13. This is all part of the downfall of the Jewish before Moshiach comes. Gelt gelt and then some more gelt, Good luck.

  14. Now at least we have a thread of responses that are very entertaining, thank you all for the great work you are doing, keep it up

  15. On a side note, Bubby1, why do you use “going to the gas”. Jewish women did not “go to the gas”. They went, or were lead to the gas chambers. Is a literal translation from English to Yiddish? Just asking. Of course, anti-semites, at protests and soccer games, shout “Jews to the Gas” but we don’t have to speak as they do.

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