Influential rabbi says Isreal’s first gay legislative speaker is “infected with disease”

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

An influential Israeli rabbi with ties to his country’s incoming conservative lawmakers has made homophobic comments about Amir Ohana, the first out LGBTQ+ speaker ever to serve in the country’s parliament, the Knesset.

Last Saturday, Rabbi Meir Mazuz — a Haredi rabbi at the Kisse Rahamim Yeshiva, an orthodox seminary — told students attending an online lecture that Ohana was “infected with a disease” and that his sexual orientation was responsible for a 2021 crowd crush that killed 45 people, The Times of Israel reported.

Mazuz insinuated that Ohana’s “disease” had caused the outcome of a deadly crowd crush that occurred in 2021 during the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yocha in Mount Meron, Israel. Ohana was the public security minister at the time and oversaw policing at the event, The Middle East Eye noted.

“Two years ago, something happened at Lag B’Omer and people say… that there was some minister there in charge of Meron who is himself infected with this disease. So do we even need to question why it happened to us?” Mazuz rhetorically asked his seminary students, without specifically mentioning Ohana’s name.

Ohana, who has two children with his same-sex partner of 18 years – Israel does not grant marriages to same-sex couples – responded by…

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