A recording published by Channel 14 News revealed a shocking conversation between former prime minister Ehud Barak and his friend, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, in which Barak speaks disparagingly about Sephardi Jews and outlines his vision to improve Israel by carrying out “mass conversions” and creating “more quality” Israelis.

The conversation took place during a working meeting between Epstein, Larry Summers, and Barak in 2013—when Barak was nearing the end of his term as defense minister.

In the recording, Barak is heard saying, “I believe we have to break the monopoly of the Orthodox Rabbanut on marriage and, in a sophisticated, subtle manner, open the gates for massive conversion into Judaism. And we can control the quality much more effectively than Israel’s founding fathers, who took anyone who came in order to save people from North Africa and from the Arab world. Now we can be selective.”

He added: “With a much more open mind about ‘Who’s a Jew?’ we can absorb another million.

Barak added that if Israel accepts “Jews” from Eastern Europe, “many handsome and tall girls will come.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a statement in response, stating, “A shocking revelation about Ehud Barak was exposed in the recordings of his pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein. Ehud Barak proposes carrying out a selection among Jews and ‘importing’ the ‘right’ Jews’ to Israel—those who are not Mizrachi nor right-wing.”

“When the left and its messiah Ehud Barak fail to win at the ballot box—they try to replace the people. And if that is not enough, they can always rely on the alliance of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who will again join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri stated, “Ehud Barak, as you know, is the intellectual leader—the ‘chief of the Kaplan tribe’ and the head of the left-wing elite—and he said terrible things: ‘We need to take control of the Rabbanut and the conversion process to bring in a mass movement of non-Jews—but not like the founding fathers who brought Jews from Middle Eastern countries—they had no choice. We must bring migrants from Europe, from places that will allow us to control the country.’”

Deri continued: “Barak knows that Jews of Middle Eastern descent—Sephardim—who have a simple, pure emunah in the Borei Olam, can’t be manipulated. With them, you can’t win; you can’t turn Israel into a secular state. Just imagine if Netanyahu had said such things—how would people like Bennett, Eisenkot, and Channel 12 react? The headlines would scream: ‘Netanyahu the racist—look how he talks about Mizrachi Jews!’”

“And imagine if I, Aryeh Deri, had said such things about immigration from the former Soviet Union. What would [Avigdor] Liberman, [Maaviv reporter] Ben Caspit, and all the others say about racism then? But now everyone is silent, not a word about Ehud Barak or his racist comments.”

Deri concluded, “But you, people of the right—know the truth and don’t be afraid of them. B’ezrat Hashem, we will prevail. We will continue to protect Eretz Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, and Am Yisrael.”

Channel 14 also released a recording of Barak conveying the same message at a conference of the Association of Tel Aviv Journalists:

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)