Following the publication of an article by Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, son of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and the chairman of Israel’s Association of Community Rabbis, against the LGBT community, he and his family have been the victims of a daily campaign of harassment and threats.
“Since I published the article on the Internet, my family has been the subject of intense attacks,” Rabbi Eliyahu said.
“It means ordering services to the house, people who call all the time, we have reached the point where my children simply disconnected the phone,” he added.
According to Rabbi Eliyahu, this is part of a retaliatory action by members of the LGBT community, who published his phone number online.
Apart from the phone harassment, Rabbi Eliyahu and his family are also exposed to threats on the Internet, including shocking wishes and slander.
“People write about my children all kinds of very unpleasant things,” he said. “It’s a very difficult feeling that you can’t say what you think without experiencing this kind of intense attack,” he explained.
Rabbi Eliyahu, who chose to speak publicly against the LGBT community’s struggle to extend the coverage of the Surrogacy Law to male homosexual couples, resented the brutal censorship he experienced. “It is inconceivable that in the State of Israel only one type of person is allowed to speak, and they are considered moral, while anyone who wants to protest their position cannot do so.”
Rabbi Eliyahu complained that “there are those who are permitted to trade in people, to trade in children, to trade in women, to create for themselves a child, and anyone who wants to express the Torah’s contrary position cannot.”
“It is reminiscent of the time of the Gaza disengagement, the time of Oslo, when the media align themselves with one position, and anyone who thinks otherwise it becomes a murderer, an inciter, and a danger to the democracy,” he said, adding, “It’s a shame that the media are aligned with this one position, and does not allow a large part of the nation to express their position.”
Rabbi Eliyahu urged “rabbis, intellectuals, people of Torah, to write, to express themselves, to show up.”
The Association of Community Rabbis in Israel has launched a new initiative for Rabbis, educators, and anyone who wishes that his Torah to be submitted properly, pass the screen and reach an audience.
The group issued an invitation to all of the above, saying: “We aspire to deliver Jewish information to human hearts all over the world, and we begin with you, on the 28th of Av (August 9), at a Spirituality and Media conference which will train people of Torah in the arts of writing, speaking and television.”