Riskin changes tack: Now says Iran, not Obama, is Haman
Rabbi clarifies: ‘My problem is that the president seems to be making a deal that is very problematic with that Haman, and leaving Israel without a protector’
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin reversed his earlier comparison of President Obama to the biblical villain Haman, saying that Iran — not the president — is comparable to the ancient enemy of the Jews.
In an interview Wednesday, Riskin, the American-born chief rabbi of the West Bank settlement of Efrat and the founder of New York City’s Lincoln Square Synagogue, told JTA that Obama “is causing Israel to be existentially endangered” in his pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. But the president, Riskin said, is not the equivalent of Haman.
“Let me make it very clear: Haman is not, God forbid, President Obama,” Riskin said. “Haman is Iran. My problem is President Obama seems to be making a deal that is very problematic with that Haman, and at the same time leaving Israel without a protector.”
In a speech Saturday night at Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, Riskin compared Obama to Haman, the villain of the Book of Esther who plots, unsuccessfully, to kill Persia’s Jews.
“The president of the United States is lashing out at Israel, just like Haman lashed out at all the Jews,” Riskin said in the speech. “And I’m not making a political statement. That’s OK. I’m trying to make a Jewish statement.”
The crowd booed an audience member who shouted that Riskin was being disrespectful to Obama.
“I am being disrespectful because the president of the United States was disrespectful to my prime minister, to my country, to my future and to the future of the world,” Riskin said.
The Saturday statement was criticized by the North American rabbinic human rights organization T’ruah, which started an online petition calling on Riskin to apologize. As of Wednesday, it had 269 signatures.
On Wednesday, Riskin said he meant only to compare the personal animosity between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the hate between Haman and Mordechai, the Jewish hero of the Book of Esther.
“What happened with Persia was because Haman was personally piqued by Mordechai; he took it out on the Jewish people,” Riskin said. “That seems to be what was happening in America. President Obama was personally piqued when Netanyahu accepted an invitation from the Congress to speak. He said that would cause him to rethink the entire relationship of the United States to Israel.”
In an email to JTA after the interview, Riskin again emphasized that there is “no comparison” between Obama and Haman.
Riskin led the Lincoln Square Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side of New York, for 20 years before making aliyah in 1983.
Ties between Washington and Jerusalem have sunk to new lows in recent weeks over disagreements between Netanyahu and Obama regarding negotiations with Iran and peace efforts with the Palestinians.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu protested the terms of the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, and expressed outrage that Iran continues to vow that it will destroy Israel.
