Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Blames Murder of Jewish Settlers on Gay Pride
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A haredi Orthodox leader said at a memorial event for a young couple killed in a Palestinian attack in front of their children that their murder was a result of the gay pride parade in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Meir Mazuz, who is the head of Tunisian Jewry in Israel and heads the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva in B’nei Brak, made the assertion on Sunday at a memorial event in Jerusalem marking the sheloshim, or 30 days, since the couple’s death. Mazuz is also the spiritual head of the Yachad political party founded by former Shas Party leader Eli Yishai.
The two oldest of the Henkin’s four children attended the memorial.
“Gay pride parade? Pride in what?” Mazuz said in videotaped remarks that were posted on the Hebrew language Walla news website. “What pride is there in opposing nature? What pride is there is opposing God? For this comes punishment.”
He called on Jews to stop performing “immoral acts.”
“We must avoid acts of Sodom and Gomorrah that have multiplied over the past year,” he said.
He also said that Jews should avoid visiting the Temple Mount in order to avoid “provoking the nations.”
Eitam and Naama Henkin, a couple in their 30s, were murdered near the West Bank settlement of Itamar while they were driving home with their four children, ages 4 months to 9 years, from an event in Hebron. The children were not wounded in the attack. Eitam Henkin was a dual American-Israeli citizen.
A haredi Orthodox man stabbed six marchers at the Jerusalem gay pride parade in late July, leaving a 16-year-old girl dead. Thousands participated in the 14th annual Jerusalem March for Pride and Tolerance, which went through the center of the city.
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