Ehud Barak under fire over talks with Jeffrey Epstein to convert 1 million Russians

In released audio tapes, disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein lamented high Orthodox Jewish birth rates, spoke with former Israeli prime minister about mass conversion of Eastern Europeans to reset Israel’s demographics.

By World Israel News Staff

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has come under fire following the release of audio recordings from a meeting with disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein more than a decade ago.

The recordings were released by the US Justice Department last week, one of the millions of files related to the Epstein investigation that were recently made public.

The meeting took place sometime in either 2013 or 2014, given that Barak gave his age at the time as 71.

Barak, who corresponded regularly with Epstein and was spotted outside his Manhattan residence, had already been named in multiple documents released by the Justice Department from the Epstein investigation.

In the newly released audio file, Epstein can be heard lamenting the high birth rates of Arabs and Orthodox Jews in Israel, suggesting that the country should take steps to adjust the demographic balance.

“The demography seems terrible,” Epstein said. “Nobody sane seems to be procreating, and everybody insane in their own way seems to have five children… whether it is Arabs or Orthodox, they have five or so. Regular Israelis have one-and-a-half children, two.”

Barak said in response that Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews “are more productive than the Arabs,” noting the high Orthodox birth rate, while adding that Israel still faces an Arab majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

“The future in Israel is waking up in the right moment, before it’s too late,” Barak said. “It will be an Arab majority.”

The former premier said that Israel should “break the monopoly of the Orthodox rabbinate” and engage in a concerted effort to bring at least one million people from Eastern Europe to Israel and convert them to Judaism en masse.

“We can easily absorb another million,” Barak said. “I used to tell Putin that what we need is just one more million to change Israel in a dramatic manner.”

“We have to break the monopoly of the Orthodox rabbinate – on marriage and funerals, the definition of a Jew,” Barak continued. “Open the gates for massive conversion to Judaism. It’s a successful country. Many will apply.”

Barak criticized Israel’s immigration policies in the early years of the state, adding that Israel now should be “more selective.”

“We can control the quality much more effectively, much more than the founding fathers of Israel did,” Barak said. “They took whatever came just to save people. Now, we can be more selective.”

“We need, dramatically, the million Russians,” he said.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis and former chief rabbi of Russia, took to his X account to condemn the proposal, which he called “crazy,” adding that during his term as chief rabbi of Russia, he helped block Barak’s plan.

“I am glad [that] when I was the chief rabbi of Moscow, we stopped this crazy initiative. Didn’t know then that it was discussed with Epstein.”

According to a report by Channel 14, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu excoriated Barak during a cabinet meeting and quoted a longtime Labor Party member and former Barak ally who condemned the former premier for his conversation with Epstein.

“I was shocked to hear Ehud Barak’s new ‘race theory,’” Netanyahu said. “The close friend of the pedophile whom he visited more than 30 times at his home and in other places.

“The man is simply shameless! I’m quoting to you what Eli Goldschmidt from the Labor Party, who had been one of his supporters, said about him: ‘I am ashamed of Ehud Barak. Ashamed that I supported him in the past. The fact that no one in the left-wing parties is shocked or responds shows that they think like him.'”

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