Homophobic conference’s claim to be recognized by Education Ministry sparks outrage
Ministry swiftly disavows gathering, as lawmakers and LGBTQ rights groups pan Even Yisrael teacher training event that includes panels featuring gay conversion therapy proponents

Lawmakers and LGBTQ organizations expressed outrage Wednesday following media reports on an upcoming conference that claimed teachers could receive Education Ministry-recognized training at panel discussions featuring supporters of gay conversion therapy.
The Education Ministry swiftly said it did not recognize the conference, put together by the Even Yisrael organization and titled “Jewish education in the post-modern era.” Panels and sessions will focus on LGBTQ topics from an apparently intolerant point of view.
Gay conversion therapies, also called reparative therapies, have been strongly discouraged in Israel, the US and elsewhere, with major health organizations criticizing pseudo-scientific methods and the treatment of homosexuality as a mental illness. Last year the Health Ministry issued a ban on medical professionals engaging in such therapy.
Promotional material for Even Yisrael’s third annual conference claimed it was offering teachers supplementary training that would be accepted by the Education Ministry.
It includes panel discussions on topics such as “the role of an educator in dealing with opposite attractions” and “the dangers of trans ideology.”
The conference is scheduled for June 26 and June 29 in the West Bank settlement of Ariel and the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem, respectively. However, Jerusalem city council member Yosi Havilio said city hall had decided it would not permit the conference to be held in the Pisgat Ze’ev municipal event center.
“The Jerusalem municipality should not place its assets at the disposal of extreme and harsh men women, who in my opinion, crush the souls of young men and women,” he said.
Israel National News reported that Ariel had also decided not to host the event on official premises.

Conference organizers said that approval for teacher participation in the conference was given in principle by the Education Ministry’s department for Supervision of State-Religious Education, according to Haaretz. However, Even Yisrael conceded that the conference was publicized before final approval was given for recognizing it as supplemental training time for teachers.
The Education Ministry said in response that “the content of the conference was not approved by the relevant authorities in the ministry. When the mistake was discovered, it was made clear that until the content is checked and approved, the conference will not be defined as recognized for further education.”
The head of the Knesset gay rights lobby, MK Yorai Lahav-Hertzano, said in a statement that the summit was “nothing short of madness.”
“This obsession of rabbis, educators, and the media to spread fear and hatred against people just because of their heart’s inclination is deadly. Homophobia is not covered under freedom of expression, and the State of Israel should fight it — not finance its distribution,” he said.
He vowed to speak with the director general of the Education Ministry to have the conference removed from the ministry’s system.
Opposition Labor party MK Naama Lazimi likewise said she would launch an “urgent inquiry” with the Education Ministry and demand that a discussion be held on the matter.
“This attack on the gay community and in particular on gay youth will not pass in silence,” she vowed.
The conference will open with a presentation by Rabbi Zvika Dantelsky, chair of Hosen organization, which encourages conversion therapy for gay religious youths. His talk is titled “Attraction or choice? The world of the contender.”

Among those who will participate in panels is David Schwartz, an Orthodox psychotherapist and rabbi, who in the past petitioned against a New York law banning conversion therapy, claiming it violated the right to freedom of religion.
Megama, an organization of gay teachers in the education system, denounced the conference as encouraging “LGBT-phobia, transphobia, and hatred.”
“As educators, it is important for us to remind our students everywhere. We are here to protect them and be a safe space for them even on days when hatred rears its head.”
Hila Peer, chair of the Aguda Association for LGBT Equality in Israel, said the “entire essence” of the conference “is wild incitement and obsessive hatred for LGBT people.”
“It is not clear how the Education Ministry could initially promote it as a professional conference, and the issue should be investigated. But it was a good thing that it immediately disowned the conference,” she said.
Rom Ohayun, director of IGY, The Proud Youth Organization, said in a statement: “It is good that the Education Ministry clarified that this crazy and hate-filled conference is not happening with its approval and will not be supported by it.
“We will do everything to stop this from happening and to make it clear to the Israeli public that there is no science behind it and no [factual] content — only murderous hatred that leads to the death of innocent girls and boys,” he said.
The Anti-Conversion Center, an activist group against the method, said “Conversion ‘therapies’ are ineffective, harmful and carried out with unethical methods, bordering on sectarianism” and called on the Education Ministry to instead back teacher training that opposes such therapy.