Interior Minister Moshe Arbel on Monday permanently revoked the visa of Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a US-born spokesman for the fringe Neturei Karta sect, and permanently barred him from entering Israel after he met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Brazil.
Arbel said that he “will not allow anyone who acts against the State of Israel and identifies with its enemies to enter it,” adding that cooperation with Iran crossed a red line.
Weiss, 69, travelled to Sao Paulo this week to take part in side events around the BRICS summit. According to Iran’s Mehr News Agency, Weiss held a “discussion and expressed solidarity” with Araghchi and signed a memorial book for “martyrs of Zionist attacks on Iran.”
Photographs circulated on social media showing Weiss presenting the minister with flowers and denouncing Israel. He was previously filmed in Tehran in 2006 attending a government-sponsored Holocaust-denial conference and has repeatedly praised Iranian leaders.
Who is Yisroel Dovid Weiss?
Weiss, a resident of Monsey, New York, is the most visible spokesman for Neturei Karta, an ultra-Orthodox faction of a few hundred adherents that rejects Zionism and calls for the dismantling of the Jewish state. He has met senior figures in Hezbollah and Hamas and has been ostracized by mainstream Orthodox bodies for embracing avowed enemies of Israel.
Under Section 2(b) of Israel’s Law of Return, the interior minister may deny entry or citizenship to a Jew who “is engaged in an activity directed against the Jewish people” or poses a threat to public security. Arbel, a Shas party lawmaker who entered office in March 2024, has already used the clause to block several extremists from arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport.
The ban comes less than three weeks after Israel and the United States carried out joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, prompting days of missile exchanges before a June 24 ceasefire. Israeli officials told The Jerusalem Post that Tehran is using meetings with dissident Jewish figures to fuel propaganda that delegitimizes Israel’s right to self-defense.