United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush likened Reform Jews and Labor MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi, to pigs in a Knesset speech on Monday.
He made his comments in reaction to the appointment of Kariv as chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
UTJ chairman Moshe Gafni said the party’s MKs would not sit on the committee.
Speaking from the podium in the Knesset plenum, Porush denounced Reform Judaism, calling it “a new religion” that tried to pretend it was valid.
“Esau was compared to a pig who, when he sat down and spread his hooves, said, ‘Look, I am pure,’” he said. “What is the problem with the Reform [movement]? They take parts of the Torah, they have a new religion, they spread their hooves and say, ‘We are pure,’ like the pig that spreads its hooves.”
The new government is a “government of hate,” Porush said, adding that it had decided to appoint Kariv, “that man, the Reform [Jew] in the Knesset, who all the time spreads his hooves and says, ‘I am pure.’”
“He will head the committee, and with his power, he will try and undermine the laws of the Torah, God forbid,” he said.
UTJ MK Uri Maklev said Kariv represented the Reform movement, “which seeks to erode the Jewish people with malicious intent.”
“Until now, there were serious discussions in this committee,” he said. “But this [appointment of Kariv as chairman] is designed to turn it into a scene of violent confrontation.”
“Look at what is happening at the Western Wall,” Maklev said. “The Western Wall is almost the only place where the unity of the Jewish people is expressed, and what are they doing there today? They turned it into a scene of violent confrontation.”
Rabbi Noa Sattath, director of the Israel Reform Action Center, denounced Porush’s comments, saying he had crossed a redline, and it could not be tolerated.
“The rabbinical establishment is a bullying and dangerous monopoly, and MK Porush himself proves it,” she said.