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FIGHTING TOEIVA: New Likud Member Claims That “Pride Parades” Go Against Nature and Should Be Prohibited


Shlomo Karai PhD., the newest member of the Likud party, who currently according to electoral polls will be a Knesset member in the next government, made a statement on Sunday that is sure to inflame some of Israel’s more liberal elements.

Karai said that “pride parades are things that are completely prohibited. They are against nature. These are things that attempt to give legitimacy to things that go against the very fabric of the natural nuclear family. Every person can do whatever they want, they have the right to do so. But to go ahead and do this in a way that tries to make it legitimate with a public statement such as this, I don’t think that this is appropriate.”

When asked by Israeli media what he felt a possible media backlash would be to his statements, Karai said: “It’s fine. I’m okay being in the spotlight for this stance.”

Karai, is a new member of the Likud upper echelon, having garnered number 27 on the party list in the recent primaries. He is a resident of Zameret, which lies in the Gaza periphery and is one of 17 children. He was elected to be the representative of the Negev for the party and thus received a spot that is completely plausible for him to be an MK in the next Knesset. He himself is married and has five children.

Members of the LGBT community in Israel have already denounced Karai as a laughing stock and an embarrassment based on these comments and questioned how the party that has an openly Toeiva member Amir Ohana, could have someone whose opinions are so much the opposite.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)



14 Responses

  1. And they are correct
    Amir Ohana, is a laughing stock and an embarrassment
    based on these comments it’s questionable how the party that can have an openly Toeiva member Amir Ohana, whose opinions are so much the opposite.

  2. Shlomo Karai is correct.

    Good on him for having the courage of his convictions to state this position publicly.

    As history attests, many people who stand up for decent traditional values have been libelled,/defamed/slandered or attacked. On many fronts in the world in early 2019, the situation is like that described in the Tanach, Genesis 19, whereby the two angels, trying to teach/counsel/redeem the sinful residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, were violently hated for being wise and caring.

  3. Whatever your position on these LGB events, the Israeli Supreme Court has made it clear that as a matter of secular law, not halacha) they are legal. It is equally legal for a political hack like Karai to make a fool of himself and as the article points out, he seems to take great pride (no pun) in doing so. This would be like a candidate on the Shass slate taking the position that convicted felons shouldn’t be allowed to run for public office. Perhaps he should focushis political pandering on outlawing the Peleg hoodlums who consistently have engaged in public demonstrations, violent behavior and disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis rather than a one time event that he is free to ignore.

  4. Wrong.

    We don’t hold our ideals because they are in line with nature. We are not pantheists. We do not worship the earth.

    If something is wrong, it is because it goes against Hashem.

    Fluff is not Judaism. If you are afraid to hinge your morals on God, don’t lecture me about them on the basis of half-baked idolatry.

    There’s no mitzvah to be natural. If you want to stand up for Hashem and his Torah, stand up for Hashem and his Torah. Don’t give me “nature.”

  5. Gadolhadorah:
    What the he**??
    Do you follow the Psak of the “Supreme Court”?
    Who needs the Moshiach, then? We already have a KNESET GEDULA!

  6. Shlomo Karai PhD. is correct but for the wrong reasons. Being a toeiva is ossur midioraisa. To allow these sick people, yes they’re mentally ill, to parade in Ir Hakodesh, Yerushalayim, is wrong. All Torah observing Yidden should raise their voices and protest against any and all toeiva activities in Yerushalayim or anywhere.

  7. What Shlomo Karai is pointing out is already pointed out in the Mishna, Horiyos, the end of the third perek, if a man and a lady are both captured and if they aren’t freed, they will be used for immoral purposes with men, if we are only able to free one of them, the man’s freedom gets precedence, because the lady being used in such a manner – even though it’s terrible – is not as bad as the man being used in such a manner, because, as the Bartenurah explains, with the lady it’s natural and with the man it’s not natural.
    If he would say that the only reason not to act in such a manner is because of nature, I would disagree, the reason is because the Torah says so. But he’s saying that, even in a country where the Torah’s rules are not enforced by the government, we should still not legitimize unnatural relationships. What’s wrong with that?

  8. YSP –

    This is the battle he picks? Breaking the Torah, that we could live with, but if we’re not “natural” that’s too far? This is a Torah hashkafa? Your point that the Torah takes nature into account is certainly true. But if his point is to fall back on that position of the Torah as the basis of his opinion, why does he not fall back on the more real positions of the Torah that form the basis of his opinion? And why doesn’t he mention the Torah? The answer is he is not really falling back on the Torah at all. He is trying to make a secular-liberal-friendly argument and stamp it as some kind of Torah-neutral principle of truth when it is not. Nature is something we sometimes take as it is and sometimes change.

    If you want to deal with secularism, you either do it practically or intellectually. If you want to do it practically, don’t talk to me about principles. If you want to do it intellectually, the only principles I want to hear are Hashem and his Torah.

  9. Jin, One can respond to your with 4 words “Moshiach is not here”. Until that happens, one must obey the legal laws of the State of Israel, Supreme Court (and likewise for Americans following the law of the land). You and I don’t like, enjoy, or favor these types of parades; but the law is the law. I follow the psak of the Supreme Court.

  10. I understand being a Jewish state that there must be tolerance for Muslims Buddhism Christians etc. but what i don’t understand is why when it comes to chariedim who are Jewish, the law of tolerance don’t apply ? unless it is not a Jewish state.

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