Senior Rabbi calls settler violence ‘desecration of Judaism’

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, former Rabbi of New North London Synagogue and senior Rabbi of Masorti Judaism, has called settler violence in the occupied West Bank as a “desecration of Judaism”. In an interview with Sky News, Rabbi Wittenberg said that he witnessed what was happening in the West Bank during his recent visit to the occupied territories. “As foreign secretary (Ed Miliband) was making his statement, I was in the village of Umm al-Khair, where last year Awdah Hathaleen was murdered by a settler. I was there again to meet his family. I saw how new settler homes have been erected literally 10 metres from the villagers’s homes, how they have been cut off by an imposed military zone,” he said. Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and consultant on the 2024 documentary ‘No Other Land’, was fatally shot by Israeli settler Yinon Levi in Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank, on 28 July 2025. “This is wrong, and not allowed in any way by Judaism, which tells us that every single human being is created in the image of God. And it is not a few bad apples. It is clearly backed up sometimes by much higher authorities.” Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg on @SkyNews speaking out against the rampant settler violence he has personally witnessed. He represents another voice in the Jewish community stressing the necessity of the UK government taking action on Israeli settlements. pic.twitter.com/IEjugWgLZ1 — Yachad UK (@YachadUK) September 10, 2026