OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, November 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Hebrew daily newspaper, Ma'ariv, is facing a boycott in West bank religious settlements, where readers are outraged by a report in its weekend magazine, in which it said that a leading settler rabbi, Shlomo Aviner, sexually harassed at least two women who anonymously complained about him to the newspaper, an Israeli newspaper reported Saturday.

Ha’aretz said that when questions on the accusations by the paper, Aviner, rabbi at Beit El B, denied them, saying they are "a tempest in a tea cup."

Aviner's stature in the national religious community is such that the accusations against him prompted outrage. In the settlements of Ateret, Shilo Eli, Neve Tsuf - and others, a boycott has begun against the newspaper, said Ha’aretz.

The report, spread over several pages in Friday’s Ma'ariv weekend magazine, quotes two women anonymously describing incidents they interpreted as sexual harassment or innuendo, the paper said.

One woman said that the rabbi deliberately sat next to her with his knee touching hers, while the other said that when she called the rabbi late one night, as he had suggested when she felt troubled, he played her a French chanson about how good it is to be in love, then laughed into the phone and hung up, reported Ha’aretz adding that whie the rabbi denied the specifics of the allegations in the report, he admitted some of the incidents took place, but says they were misinterpreted.

Both of the women said they approached Rabbis Tzvi Tau, Mordechai Eliahu and Avraham Shapira about the incidents, but those rabbis tried to shush up the affair.

Ma’ariv said that Rabbi Aviner is strict during his lessons on stressing that Jewish men should not show any form of admiration to women with the exception of their wives. He says that it is not permissible to pass greetings to women and that a Jewish religious man should not ask his colleague to pass his greetings on to his wife.