Prominent rabbi to yeshiva heads: Don't hire Arabs

Ynetnews.com 17.3.2008

Top Torah sage issues decision banning employment of non-Jews by rabbinical seminaries in light of Mercaz Harav terror attack. "After all, we are at war with them," he says Neta Sela
"According to Jewish law, it is completely forbidden to hire Arabs, especially in yeshivas; there is a concern of endangering lives,” Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, considered a top Torah sage of the generation in the haredi-religious community, said Sunday.
According to Yom Hadash, a free daily newspaper for the ultra-Orthodox community, several administrators of a yeshiva in Bnei Brak met the rabbi at his home in the central Israel city and told him of an Arab employee who they said was not suspected of involvement in any terror-related activity.
The administrators asked the rabbi for guidance in the wake of the deadly terror attack at the Mercaz Harav rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem, which was carried out by an east Jerusalem Arab who was formerly employed by the establishment.
Rabbi Kanievsky responded by issuing a Jewish legal decision banning the employment of Arab workers by Jews and said "After all, we are at war with them…and are there not Jews that can work and make a living?”
The rabbi added that Jews should refrain from employing any non-Jews, not just Muslim Arabs, and instead grant livelihood to Jews, "unless there exists a huge disparity between the costs of the labor".