Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

(JTA) – Israel’s top immigration official says the country will not award citizenship to Baruch Lanner, a rabbi and convicted sex offender from the United States.

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s announcement, made Tuesday to the Jerusalem Post, came a day after nearly 200 American rabbis and Jewish scholars sent a letter to Israel’s prime minister, Yair Lapid, urging him to reject Lanner’s citizenship application.

Lanner, an American rabbi and former official of the Orthodox Union’s NCSY youth group, served a three-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting students at a Jewish high school...