Moldova ambassador protests ‘ignoramus’ comments from Shas MK

Moldova’s ambassador to Israel Alexandr Roitman sends a scathing letter to Shas MK Yinon Azoulay after he made derogatory comments about the eastern European nation.

Addressing the Knesset plenum yesterday, Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman said the Vilna Gaon — a vaunted 18th-century rabbi — studied math and astronomy in his spare time, in a rebuke of ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t teach Education Ministry prescribed core subjects.

Firing back, Azoulay called Liberman “the ignoramus from Moldova,” where Liberman was born and grew up.

“I could not ignore such an unjustified statement towards my country. I urge you to refrain from such statements in the future,” Roitman says in his letter to Azoulay.

“Using such language is unacceptable, especially in light of hundreds of years of shared history between the Moldavian people and the Jewish people,” he writes.