As previously reported on VIN News, a video of Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi that was posted to YouTube on December 29th shows the well known lecturer saying that only about one million Jews were actually killed in the Holocaust and that the statistic of six million Jews who perished includes a significant percentage of Jews who had intermarried and were not halachically Jewish.

In a VIN News interview tonight, Rabbi Mizrachi said that the clip that has been making the rounds of the media was taken from a lecture given several years ago, with bits and pieces spliced together to distort his words. 

According to Rabbi Mizrachi the video is the work of a group that has been trying to discredit him publicly because he speaks the words of the Torah.

“They have been fighting me years and this time they succeeded,” Rabbi Mizrachi told VIN News.  “This a video that is three to four years old that has been on my website, on Torah Anytime, and maybe 200 YouTube channels and there hasn’t been a single complaint about it.  They cut the front, they cut the back, they put things where they wanted them and after they cut what I said it makes it onto The Jerusalem Post.”

Rabbi Mizrachi said that the original lecture addressed the subject of intermarriage in America something he termed the “Silent Holocaust.”

“There are so many people named Levi, Cohen and Stern and if the wife is not Jewish then the kids are not,” said Rabbi Mizrachi.  “The Jewish nation is being destroyed because of intermarriage.”

The lecture also discussed the rampant assimilation that had been sweeping through Europe prior to World War II and Rabbi Mizrachi noted that there is no way to know how many of the six million who died were actually Jewish, but that suggesting a number of one million was a mistake on his part.

“Even saying that only 3 million would have been far from the truth,” acknowledged Rabbi Mizrachi, who issued a public apology last night.

Rabbi Mizrachi said that he felt it was appropriate to ask forgiveness for his remarks even though he never meant to offend Holocaust survivors or their families.

“I chose to apologize because people got offended and that was not my intention, even if they modified my words,” said Rabbi Mizrachi. “I put my ego aside and apologized.  How could anyone with a Jewish mind and soul think that I had any kind of intention to offend survivors and victims? What normal person would think that a person who gives 18 to 20 hours of his day every day to save Jews would do something like that?”

Rabbi Mizrachi argued that the video that was released was a deliberate attempt to distort his words by those who hope to tarnish his reputation.

“When a person speaks and you cut 90 percent of what they say, does it represent what he said or what he wanted to say?” observed Rabbi Mizrachi.  “This was put out by a group of liars who use the media to confuse the public.  They can’t stand when I say the truth of the Torah.  I speak about modesty, mixed dancing, gay marriage, liberals, things that offend people who are not following the Torah and when they hear me it bothers them.”

Rabbi Mizrachi has multiple presences on Facebook. The Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi Community Organization page has over 78,000 followers, with more than 18,000 followers on the Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi Public Figure page.

A third Facebook page, titled Exposing “Rabbi” Yosef Mizrachi Comedian, has over 600 likes and is described as a collection of “Outrageous Moments in ‘Rabbi’ Yosef Mizrachi’s career.”  The site, which says that all clips are taken “in context” features a playlist of short YouTube clips with titles including ‘Mixed Dancing weddings lead to Cancer and Tragedies,” and “Secular Israeli Soldiers go to Hell with no Share in the World to Come says the ‘Rabbi,’” as well as a pair of videos encompassing over an hour of fifteen minutes of what are termed “Best Hits.”

Rabbi Mizrachi estimated that with approximately 6 million Facebook views each month, there are many who hope to lessen his influence on his followers.

“Huge organizations don’t get the numbers that I do,” said Rabbi Mizrachi. “Obviously I am the target of all the enemies.”