Report: U.K.’s Top Rabbi Praises Murdoch

The chief rabbi of the United Kingdom praised Rupert Murdoch this week, declaring that Israel did not have “a better or more significant friend in the world” than the 81-year-old News Corp. chairman.

Lord Sacks made the comments on Thursday during his last official visit to Israel as chief rabbi, in a mission to the northern projects of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, The Jewish Chronicle reports.

In a wide-ranging speech at the Tel-Hai Academic College in northern Israel, Lord Sacks said that the biggest problem facing the Jewish world is the return of anti-Semitism throughout Europe.

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He described anti-Semitism as “a set of contradictions. Jews were hated in the 19th century because they were rich,” The Chronicle reports.

Jews also were scorned because they were poor, were capitalists — even communists, Lord Sacks said.

“Anti-Semitism mutates — and we are living through one of the great mutations,” the chief rabbi said.

Jews cannot fight anti-Semitism alone, Lord Sacks said.

“How do we persuade the non-Jewish world to see anti-Semitism not just as a Jewish problem, but as their problem?” he asked, according to The Chronicle. “A civilization or a country that has no room for Jews has no room for humanity.”