Isreal cabinet ministers such as the Defense Ministry, as well as Education Minister Bennett, harshly condemned on Monday comments made by a known local rabbi who called LGBT persons as perverts.
Last week, Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, who teaches at a post-army yeshiva academy in the community of Eli, was filmed saying in an address to a Jewish law convention that "under the framework of pluralism, soldiers and officers are taught to refer to as proud, but I don't dare call them that... perverts is what I call them," he said.
Levinstein's speech sparked a firestorm, with politicians, other rabbis, and former students rushing to condemn his stance. Defense Ministry Director-General, Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, instructed the ministry's Defense Social Branch to seek clarifications from the Bnei David yeshiva, which is headed by Rabbi Levinstein.
On Monday, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan of the Likud party and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party, joined the fray.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett also criticized the rabbi's comments, saying "the Halacha (Jewish law) is meant to determine what is permitted and what is forbidden, it was not meant to serve as a tool to divide us or to single out people, identities or sectors. One cannot use derogatory terms against an entire public of people and then hide behind the Halacha. These comments are unacceptable in my opinion. This is not the way of the religious-movement."
Bennett, who was speaking at the Knesset, added "I'm not a rabbi and I don't pretend to be a great Torah scholar. I cannot interpret the Halacha. But I am a religious Jew who loves the Torah and tries to live according to its laws. I'm also the education minister for over 2 million students, and I am the leader of the Jewish Home movement. And this I know: Reality and life are far more complicated than what's forbidden and what's permitted. It's true, there are things the Torah specifically forbids. But not everyone who goes against the Torah gets kicked out of our midst. This isn't our way."
Bennett was not the only public representative outraged by the comments. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Culture Minister Miri Regev and Opposition leader Isaac Herzog all joined the chorus of condemnations.
"Such statements are dangerous. We need to be careful to not put ideas in some zealot madman's mind," Erdan said. "Let us not lose ourselves. Let us respect every person: his choices, his identity, his belief. I believe this is also the role of rabbis.""Rabbi Levinstein's comments are offensive and are not appropriate for any public figure and educator," Regev said. "The recognition of the value and importance of the traditional family structure does not make it okay to make statements against those who chose to live differently."
The Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association, known commonly as the Aguda, filed a police complaint on Sunday against Levinstein for incitement.
In a video of his lecture, Levinstein could be seen stating: "There is a crazy movement of people who have simply lost the normalcy of life. This group is making the state crazy and is infiltrating the army with all its might. Nobody dares to open his mouth or make a sound against them. In the army training camp they gave lectures on deviancy."
Rabbi Benny Lau, another religious Zionist rabbi, whose cousin David Lau is the chief rabbi of Israel, denounced Levinstein. "Who gave you permission to insult them? In the name of which Torah do you act like this?" he said in a video uploaded to Facebook.
Lau spoke of an incident two years ago when Levinstein spoke to students at Jerusalem's Himmelfarb boys' high school and mockingly compared gay people to animals. Lau recounted that "there was a student there at the back who ran out of the hall at the moment that you told your terrible joke. He intended to kill himself. They prevented him. One year ago... the same student said that he heard you making fun of him and he wanted to kill himself again."
Many former students of Levinstein's have written harshly against him on Facebook, including some who have come out since leaving his yeshiva.
Only one rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, said he agree with the basic message of Levinstein - Homosexuals are "disabled, suffering from real problems that must be cured through psychological treatment and medication," the Ynet news site reported him as saying. Ariel added that "a normal family is a father, mother and children. An abnormal family is a family that isn't proper and correct. It has psychological problems."
Photos: Rabbi Levinstein; Religious Jews taking part at the Pride Parades in Israel
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