A controversial US-Israeli rabbi has been barred from entering the UK, one of his British supporters has said.
Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, who once said autism and Down ’s syndrome were punishments for the sins of a past life, had planned to embark on a speaking tour of London and Manchester in the coming days.
According to Rabbi Aharon Bassous, whose Beth Hamedrash Knesset Yehezkel shul had planned to host Rabbi Mizrachi, told the JC on Wednesday that the Home Office intervened to block him from flying to the UK.
He had planned to fly on Wednesday evening.
The Home Office declined to comment, saying it does not “routinely comment on individual cases”.
Rabbi Bassous said: “He never came to the country. [The Home Office] cancelled his flight. I’m not sure exactly how, but the message was passed on to him that he would not be allowed to come into the country.
“It’s unfortunate what’s going on. It was not only me who was involved, but quite a few community groups. We are all disappointed.”
Media attention on his speaking tour in recent weeks has exposed Rabbi Mizrachi’s controversial decrees – including that Ashkenazi Jews helped to bring about the Holocaust by “assimilating”.
In December 2015, he also suggested the possibility that only a million Jews perished in the Holocaust, because “80 percent of the Jewish people were assimilated and intermarried with non-Jews”.
He later apologised for the remark.
A statement, allegedly circulated on Wednesday by a supporter of Rabbi Mizrachi, said he would "not be able to come and give the speeches as scheduled".
"We apologise to all those who were looking forward to getting chizuk (encouragement) from Rabbi Mizrachi," the statement said.
"Rav Mizrachi thanks from the bottom of his heart the hundreds of people who have sent him messages of support and is tremendously grateful to the few who have worked hard to try and make this happen."
It adds: "When it comes to preventing someone to speak the language of the Torah in a straightforward manner, all are up in arms to silence.
"Woe to a generation which is not able to distinguish right from left, day from night, good from evil, truth from falsehood!"
