Rabbi Meir Mazuz, an influential Haredi rabbi with close ties to several senior officials in the new government, said on Saturday that new Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, the first openly LGBTQ person to hold the post, was “infected with a illness” and insinuated that Meron’s fatal disaster of 2021 happened because of Ohana’s sexual orientation.
In his weekly sermon, the leader of the Kisse Rahamim Yeshiva in Bnei Brak told the students: “There is a time when everyone will be asked: are you part of the Pride Parade or the parade of humility? ?
“You should get away from it,” he urged, continuing, “You see people walking around and bragging [about] the pride parade in Jerusalem. Close the windows and tell your kids, “It’s an animal parade, you don’t have to watch it. They are animals that walk on two legs. What can we do about them?”
Continuing his tirade, Mazuz hinted that Ohana’s sexual orientation was responsible for the 2021 Meron mob crush that killed 45 ultra-Orthodox people during the religious holiday of Lag BaOmer in the north of the country. . Ohana was the public security minister at the time of the tragedy, a role that oversees the Israel Police, which is tasked with securing Meron’s annual event.
“Two years ago something happened in Lag Baomer and people are saying…there was a minister in charge of Meron there who is himself infected with this disease. So is it really a question of what happened to us? Mazuz asked rhetorically, not mentioning Ohana by name.
Mazuz, the rabbinical leader of the Tunisian Jewish community in Israel, has long been involved in politics. After previously backing former Shas party leader Eli Yishai and his failed party Yachad, Mazuz has in recent years publicly backed United Torah Judaism, Shas under its current leader Aryeh Deri – the new interior and security minister. Health – and far-right leader Otzma Yehudit Itamar Ben Gvir, the new national security minister.
In the last primary election for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly reinstated Likud party slate several months ago, Mazuz publicly supported Likud MK Shlomo Karhi, a loyal Netanyahu loyalist and the new communications minister. Ohana is also a Likud MK and a Netanyahu loyalist.
Shas leader Aryeh Deri (L) embraces Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir during a Knesset session where a new speaker was elected, December 13, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Mazuz has a long history of inflammatory remarks about the LGBTQ community and others.
In March 2020, he claims the coronavirus outbreak in Israel was divine punishment for gay pride parades. In 2018, he said openly gay people could not join a minyan, a quorum of 10 Jews needed for certain prayers. In 2015 he blame a wave of deadly Palestinian terror attacks on Pride parades, months after a Haredi extremist stabbed to death a 15-year-old girl at the Jerusalem Pride Parade.
Last year, Mazuz called on then-foreign minister Yair Lapid and finance minister Avigdor Liberman, along with “all their friends” from the previous government, “traitors to their people” and “worse than Nazis”. He claimed that the previous government had sought to “stifle Torah students” while “giving as much as possible to the Arabs”.
Mazuz also claimed that popular messaging app WhatsApp was “destroying the world”.
New Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana (top) and new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greet each other during the swearing-in of the new government, in Jerusalem on December 29, 2022. (Amir Cohen/Pool/AFP)
Thursday, Knesset elected Ohana as speakershortly before the vote of confidence to inaugurate the 37th Israeli government.
In his first remarks after his election, Ohana thanked his parents – who were in the gallery – for accepting him “for who I am”. And he thanked his partner, Alon Haddad, “the second half of my life for almost 18 years,” who was in the gallery with the couple’s children, Ella and David, who Ohana also spoke about.
Ohana swore the new coalition would not infringe on LGBTQ rights.
“This Knesset, under this speaker, will not harm them or any other family, period,” he said in comments to his family.
Several of Likud’s far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners have expressed homophobic stances, including seeking to bring back now-banned conversion therapy, changing government forms to say “mother” and “father” instead of “parent gender-neutral, and operating on a ‘normal family’ platform, like the openly anti-LGBTQ Noam party.
United Torah Judaism MKs Yitzhak Goldknopf and Meir Porush, respectively minister and deputy minister in the new government, averted their gaze as MK Amir Ohana, who is gay, delivers his first speech as Knesset Speaker, December 29 2022 (Screen grab from Images of Ari Kalman, Behadrei Haredim, aired on Channel 12; used pursuant to Section 27a of the Copyright Act)
Noam’s only lawmaker, new deputy minister Avi Maoz, looked away as Ohana gave his opening speech, as did members of the United Torah Judaism party.
repeatedly insisted that he would not allow any violation of LGBTQ rights despite signing coalition agreements who agree to abide by discrimination laws to allow suppliers of goods and services to refuse service based on religious beliefs.
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