Israel/Palestine

Rabbi Yigal Levinstein has said the military is too careful about harming civilians, and has called gay people 'perverts.'

Yair Ettinger and Gili Cohen Jul 21, 2016

Defense Ministry Director General Udi Adam held a meeting Thursday with the heads of a premilitary religious academy after one of them criticized the army for drafting gays and lesbians and teaching about the LGBT community in officers’ school.

Adam called the remarks of Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, who together with Rabbi Eli Sadan founded and now lead the Bnei David Academy,  unacceptable to the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment and asked him to clarify them.

Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Levinstein repeatedly referred to gays as “perverts.”

“‘The Spirit of the IDF,’ the army’s ethics code, specifies ‘human dignity’ as the fundamental, supreme moral value. All human beings are of inherent value regardless of race, creed, nationality, gender, status or role,” Adam told the men, according to a Defense Ministry statement.
“There is no doubt that excluding the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community from society contradicts the most fundamental IDF values,” Adam added. 

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