Which is more bizarre: A rabbi of one religious movement claiming that the “reek of hell wafts” from the synagogues of another—or the latter suing the rabbi for his comments?

This is the question many people will ask upon learning that Israel’s branch of the Conservative movement is threatening to sue former Sephardic chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu for saying precisely this about their synagogues, and for adding that it is forbidden even to pass by a Conservative synagogue.

Leave aside the question of whether Conservative Jews would not prefer to have Eliyahu’s adherents steer clear of their houses of worship. It still wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Yizhar Hess, secretary general of the Conservative movement in Israel, said that

Rabbi Eliyahu crossed the border of good taste, and his hateful, malicious words scorned an entire community. It is inconceivable that a religious leader should use expressions that constitute a call for civil war. The rabbi would do well to retract his statements and apologize to the millions of Jews whose honor he impugned.

Hess is, of course, right in every word. And yet—a lawsuit? Since when do religious groups sue each other for saying that they smell like hell?

There is something weird about both sides of this battle. Perhaps they reflect their origins—the freewheeling vitriolic tradition of some Sephardic rabbis, the reflexive litigiousness of American organizations, each finding expression here in technicolor. But if the suit is brought and damages awarded, it may trigger a wave of copycat crusaders, with religious groups suing each other for all the terrible things they say about each other. Think of how clogged the courts would be with the anti-Semitic stuff that comes out of Palestinian mosques!