Rabbi Aryeh Stern: Rabbis penned vitriolic letter in support of Stern’s comments. Photo: wikipedia
More than 200 of Israel’s leading rabbis have caused outrage by signing a letter calling LGBTI people ‘perverts’. The missive also condemned the gay community for wanting surrogacy rights.
The letter came after widespread protests in opposition to a new surrogacy law that excluded single men and gay couples.
Anti-gay surrogacy protests: Tel Aviv demonstrators blocked the city’s main highway. Photo: @AlonLeeGreen
Leading rabbis signed the letter in support of the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, who spoke out against gay surrogacy rights.
Rabbi said gay surrogacy would give children ‘wretched’ lives
Aryeh Stern said gay surrogacy would cause ‘children to be born and enter a very strange and unnatural life’. He also said childrens’ lives would become ‘wretched.’
The rabbis wrote that Stern had simply spoken about ‘the eternal truth of our holy Torah and human normalcy’. They claimed outrage at the ‘organisations of abomination, who carry out impudent marches in the cities of Israel.’
The LGBTI community received strong support from business, politicians and the public in nation-wide protests against the new law.
‘[T]he aggressive terror which accompanies the media’s brainwashing’ designed to ‘destroy the concept of family and turn perverts into heroes will not succeed,’ he rabbis wrote. ‘[A]nd nor will the attempt to silence rabbis and sane people and turn them into delusional extremists.’
Israeli politician Yael German said the rabbis were trying decide what is normal and what isn’t.
Politician Yael German spoke out against clerics. Photo: Wikipedia
‘The time has come for them to realize that the national-religious community also has homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people’, she said, according to the Jerusalem Post. ‘[N]o letter will change the fact that they are totally normative and want to live a full and equal life out of the closet’.
Letter could lead to violence against LGBTI community
Another politician, Michal Rozin, said the rabbis had ‘missed the train’ since Israeli society is ‘progressive and understands that love has many diverse colors’, adding that ‘benighted rabbis will be left behind, and they are in a panic.’
Secularist group, Israel Be Free, said the letter could only be interpreted as a call for violence against LGBTIs.
‘A large number of this group of crazies receive a wage from the State of Israel, and the silence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked testifies to the fact that they do not intend to do a thing to stop these men of religion who have no god,’ said the organization.
The most prominent leaders of the hardline wing of the national-religious community signed the letter. This included Rabbi Dov Lior; president of the Har Hamor Yeshiva Rabbi Tzvi Tau; and chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu.
See also:
LGBTI surrogacy protests snowball bringing Israel to a standstill
