The Jewish community of South Africa is outraged after its members were refused entry to Israel recently when they arrived to console the family members of Eli Kay, who was murdered in a terror attack in Jerusalem.
The state had just implemented new COVID-19 restrictions on entry to the country by non-citizens from abroad.
But South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Ze’ev Warren Goldstein found it difficult to remain silent in the face of that rejection.
Rabbi Goldstein said in an interview with the Hebrew-language Ynet news outlet, “The same conditions of entry should be applied to the Jews of the world as to Israeli citizens.
“This is the ancestral right of Jews all over the world,” the rabbi said. “The founders of the state established the Law of Return, and now the “Entry Law” must be enacted” as well.