In recent days, key members of the Israeli government have expressed outrageous views regarding non-Orthodox Jews. Their comments followed the government’s decision to designate an area at the Kotel that would be available for egalitarian prayer services and not be under the thumb of the Orthodox rabbinate.

Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism party took to the Knesset floor yesterday to say that Women of the Wall should be “thrown to the dogs” and added that “Reform Jews are responsible for the terrible intermarriage that we’ve been witnessing in the United States.” Finance Committee Chair Moshe Gafni, also of the United Torah Judaism party, on Sunday called Reform Jews “clowns who stab the holy Torah.” Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, of the ruling Likud party, on Sunday criticized Reform Jews for failing to condemn the Reform rabbi who officiated at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding: “Reform Jews in the United States are in a dying world. Assimilation is taking place on a vast scale. They are not even tracking this properly in their communities. It is evidenced by the fact that a man who calls himself a Reform rabbi stands there with a priest and officiates at the wedding of the daughter of Hillary Clinton and no one condemns it, thereby legitimizing it.”

It is deeply disturbing to hear this type of vitriol from leading members of the government. We thank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for issuing a statement earlier today affirming that Reform and Conservative Jews should be treated with respect. We urge him to take more action to demonstrate that the hostile views expressed by Levin, Gafni, and Porush have no place in the Israeli government.

Israel was founded to be a homeland for the Jewish people and a democratic state offering equality to all of its citizens. We at the New Israel Fund have always championed the notion that Jews — all Jews — should be respected within Israel and be able to conduct their religious, spiritual and cultural lives according to their own conscience. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israelis pressing for greater religious freedom and for an end to the religious coercion practiced by Orthodox extremists.