Man punched, hospitalized in suspected homophobic attack in Rehovot

A man was beaten and hospitalized in Rehovot Friday night in a suspected homophobic attack in the central city.

Ori Lev, 31, said he was outside a bar when a man came up to him and asked him in Russian if he was gay.

“I’m gay and I don’t hide who I am, so I answered naturally. He asked in Russian, I answered in Russian, and then I got a fist to the face and found myself on the floor,” Lev told the Ynet news site.

Lev said that he did not at first entirely understand what had happened, refused the bar manager’s offer to call an ambulance, and did not call the police.

But after waking up dizzy and vomiting in the morning, Lev decided to admit himself to the city’s Kaplan Medical Center and filed a complaint with the police with the aid of local LGBTQ community members.

Lev decided to publicize his story in a video on TikTok to emphasize he was not ashamed of who he is: “We are not hiding anymore.”

*אורי הותקף מחוץ לבר ברחובות: "שאל אם אני גיי – ונתן אגרוף שהפיל אותי לרצפה" / מאיר תורג'מן*

אורי לב, בן 31 מרחובות, התעורר הבוקר (יום שבת) עם סחרחורת וכאבים בפנים, עדות לאגרוף שספג אמש בחצות מחוץ לבר ברחוב הרצל בעירו. "מישהו שאל ברוסית אם אני גיי, עניתי בטבעיות שכן – ותוך שניות… pic.twitter.com/CkcImdrf3v

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In the video, Lev described his disappointment at the attack in his “safe place.”

“I didn’t think this would happen to me. Another one for the statistics, that’s how I feel,” he said. “You start the evening fine, you want to go out to a pub in Rehovot, not some ‘backward’ city.”

Alon Oppenheimer, the LGBTQ coordinator at Rehovot’s Community Security Authority, said his office was in contact with Lev.

“We are horrified by the grave attack, the second in a month in the city,” he said, referring to social media personality Adi Davidov who was attacked outside a mall in late July.

“We call on the police to bring the attacker to justice and act for the safety of the members of the gay community in the city,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Zohar Bloom visited Lev in the hospital and condemned the attack.

“We will act with all our might against violence. This does not suit the tolerance and acceptance of the city of Rehovot,” he said in a statement.

Asaf Al-Bar, a member of the Rehovot city council, blamed the attack on incitement by politicians.

“Words turn into actions. The wild incitement against the LGBT community from the side of politicians is irresponsible and unbridled, and the incitement against the community from religious officials and religious people is the cause behind this violence,” he said, calling on “sane voices” to condemn abuse against the community.

Al-Bar was referring to past comments by members of the current hardline coalition against the LGBTQ community. In June, ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Yitzhak Pindrus said in an interview that the LGBTQ community was the “most dangerous thing to the State of Israel — more than Islamic State, more than Hezbollah, more than Hamas.”

In a report published in March, the Aguda Association for LGBTQ Equality said it had recorded 3,300 incidents of hate against the LGBTQ community in 2022, an 11 percent increase compared to 2021. The report did not provide details on the nature of those attacks.

Nearly half the reported cases took place in Tel Aviv and the central Israel region. Nearly 20 percent occurred in Jerusalem and surrounding areas, the report said.

The LGBTQ community has repeatedly voiced its concerns over the hardline coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took power in late December, fearing that its plans to weaken the judiciary’s powers could leave their community members vulnerable to discrimination.

Earlier this month, a group of soldiers in the southern city of Beersheba posted a video of a neighbor threatening to tear down their LGBTQ pride flag hanging outside their apartment.

In July, a vehicle carrying a stack of pride flags was set ablaze in the Tel Aviv suburb of Hod Hasharon.

In April, a group of right-wing activists tried to tear down a pride flag from a balcony in Tel Aviv, amid mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul. A resident of the apartment told media outlets that it was the second time that week that passersby had tried to take down the flag.

Also that day, the slogan “Kahane lives” was graffitied on an external wall and window of the Tel Aviv LGBTQ Community Center.

The phrase is a show of support for the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, a one-time member of Knesset for the racist Kach party.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.