LGBT activists protest outside Jerusalem rabbi’s office

Activists are staging a protest outside the office of Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar over comments deemed deeply offensive to the LGBT community.

The protest against Amar, who called homosexuality an “abomination” in an interview, is organized by the local Yerushalmim Party.

Amar, who previously served as the country’s Sephardi chief rabbi, made his controversial statements in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper published in full on Friday, drawing condemnation and earning himself a police complaint for incitement.

“I call it a cult. It’s a cult of abominations, it is obvious. It’s an abomination,” Amar said. “The Torah says it is punishable by death. It is in the first rank of severe offenses… They say ‘leaning,’ ‘perversion’ – this is nonsense. There is lust, and a person can overcome it if they want to, like all lusts. This is among the most forbidden lusts, the most severe. ”

Amar said he declined to attend a memorial service for teenager Shira Banki, who was stabbed to death by an ultra-Orthodox zealot during 2015’s Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem, after her family refused to read aloud a condemnation of homosexuality he included in a condolence missive he sent to them. Amar recalled he told the parents of murdered Shira Banki that “if you want to exalt her soul to the heavens, to repent from your evil ways.”

Earlier Sunday, police were called to the rabbi’s office to investigate after protesters hung a gay pride rainbow flag there overnight.

— Luke Tress and Stuart Winer