Israel Army Rabbi Calls Gays ‘Perverts’ — Says No Need To Prevent Civilian Deaths

Image by YouTube
A rabbi who heads a religious Zionist pre-military yeshiva in the West Bank has come under criticism for calling homosexuals “perverts” and claiming the Israeli army is promoting a socially liberal agenda.
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, who runs the Bnei David academy in the Eli settlement, also said last week at a conference — a video of the speech surfaced Sunday — that the Reform movement isn’t Jewish and in fact is an offshoot of Christianity.
The conference, called “Zion and Jerusalem,” reportedly gathered 700 rabbis and educators from the National Religious sector and was convened to deal with the perceived Reform movement influence on Israeli society.
A videotape of Levinstein’s speech appeared on the haredi Orthodox Hebrew-language website Kipa.
“There’s an insane movement here whose members have lost the normalcy of life,” he said. “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,” he said, referring to the main training base for Israeli army officers, with perverts meaning homosexuals.
Levinstein also said: “Under the framework of pluralism, soldiers and officers are taught to refer to [LGBT people] as ‘proud,’ but I don’t dare call them that … ‘perverts’ is what I call them.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin criticized Levinstein during a meeting with the parents of Shira Banki, the 16-year-old who was stabbed to death during last year’s Jerusalem gay pride parade.
“The things said by rabbis, leaders and intellectuals pain me greatly,” Rivlin said. “I would like to once again remind everyone that ‘man is beloved because he was created in God’s image’ – all of mankind, without distinctions of religion, race or gender.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the National Religious Jewish Home party, also rapped Levinson, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“Jewish law is not meant to be a divisive tool, nor is it meant to be a tool for marking out people, identities or sectors,” Bennett said Monday afternoon. “One cannot denigrate an entire community and take shelter behind Jewish law.”
“The things that have been said are not acceptable to me and are not the path of religious Zionism. Reality is more complicated than what is religiously permitted and prohibited,” he said.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.