Head of global Jewish group condemns Israeli rabbi's comments on Turkiye-Syria quakes

The leader of an international Jewish umbrella group has condemned an Israeli rabbi who likened two massive earthquakes that killed thousands in Turkiye and Syria to “divine justice.”

“I am aghast and appalled by the horrific comments made by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said on Saturday in a statement.

“It is inconceivable to me that any human being of any decency, let alone a man who presents himself as a spiritual leader, would not be devastated by the tragic deaths,” added Lauder. More than 31,600 people have died and over 80,000 others injured in two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Turkiye on Feb. 6, according to the latest official figures.

Expressing “enormous pain, bordering on despair” over Eliyahu’s comments that all catastrophes and tragedies that occur are “God’s will,” he added: “I, for one, believe in a God of goodness and compassion, and I join the nation and people of Turkiye and the Syrian people in both mourning the lives lost and praying that the survivors can find some solace in the memories of their loved ones.”

“Now is a moment for us to commit ourselves to helping and supporting one another, not for the stoking of hatred and divisiveness,”

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes, centered in the Kahramanmaras province, have impacted some 13 million people across 10 Turkish provinces, including Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

Several countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon, felt the strong tremors that struck Turkiye in the space of less than 10 hours.

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Last week, Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a prominent figure in Israel’s national religious movement, said in an article published in popular right-wing weekly newsletter Olam Katan: “God is judging all the nations around us who wanted to invade our land several times and throw us into the sea.”

“We do not know what accounts (need to be settled) with Turkiye, which has defamed us in every possible arena. But if God reveals to us and tells us that he is going to judge all our enemies, we just have to look and understand what is going on around us,” Eliyahu said in the article cited by The Times of Israel daily.

Besides Lauder, Eliyahu’s comments have also received criticism from another Jewish religious figure, Rabbi Avraham Stav, who said he had expressed gladness over the death of “thousands of children who have done nothing to us being crushed along with their parents.”