Israel/Palestine

Statement slamming 'attempts to silence Israel’s rabbis' signed in support of Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, saying there's no place to legitimize 'phenomena and behavior that clearly contradict the spirit of the Torah of Israel.'

About 250 rabbis, mostly members of the Haredi-Nationalist religious camp published a statement on Wednesday in support of Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, who was widely criticized after calling homosexual people "perverts." 

In the statement, the rabbis denounced what they termed "an attempt to silence Israel’s rabbis," and voiced support for another rabbi who referred to gay people as "handicapped" following Levinstein's remarks.

"We want to express support for any rabbi who sincerely and unapologetically expresses his halachic and moral opinion in adherence to the Torah and the sages," the statement reads, adding that "there is no place for legitimizing phenomena and behavior that clearly contradict the spirit of the Torah of Israel."

The statement followed a backlash against Levinstein, the head of an IDF pre-conscription academy at the settlement of Eli. "There’s an insane movement here whose members have lost the normalcy of life. This group makes the country mad and has now penetrated the IDF in full force – and no one dares open their mouth and speak out against it. At Bahad 1, there are lectures by perverts,” Levinstein said, referring to the army’s main officers' training base. His remarks were criticized across the board and he was barred from IDF bases. Israel’s main LGBT organization also filed a police complaint against him.