Lehava

Lehava (Hebrew: למניעת התבוללות בארץ הקודש‎ LeMeniat Hitbolelut B'eretz HaKodesh; "Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land") is a Jewish far-right organization based in Israel that strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, objecting to any personal or business relationships between Jews and non-Jews. It is opposed to the Christian presence in Israel. It has an anti-miscegenation focus, denouncing marriages between Jewish women and non-Jewish, particularly Arab, men. Its actions have been denounced by President of Israel Reuven Rivlin as being like "rodents gnawing under the shared democratic and Jewish foundation of Israel".

In January 2015 Channel 2 reported that Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon may be preparing to categorize Lehava as a terrorist organization. Ya'alon was reported to have ordered the Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry to assemble evidence required for the classification. Three members of Lehava were arrested and indicted in 2014 for committing arson and spray-painting anti-Arab graffiti at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel (Yad B'Yad) Bilingual School in Jerusalem, and Lehava's leader, Ben Zion Gopstein, along with other group members were arrested shortly thereafter for incitement. The arson incident received international attention. Reuters reports that government action against Lehava has only come following months of petitioning by "left-leaning Israelis and media commentators". In response, Gopstein issued a statement harshly critical of Ya'alon: "I suggest that [Ya'alon] aim to outlaw the Islamist Movement and then preoccupy itself with an anti-assimilation group.... Instead of taking care of an enemy of Israel, the defense minister is trying to win over votes from the Left [by] taking on Lehava. The group acts to save the daughters of Israel [Jewish women] and deserves the Israel Prize."

Prominent members and supporters

Lehava was founded by Mosis Zion in 2009, is chaired by Bentzi Gopstein, a sworn disciple of Meir Kahane, a U.S.-born rabbi who promoted the removal of Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Gopstein had run-ins with the police for disorderly conduct while active with Kahane's movement Kach, which was banned from Israeli politics as racist in 1988.

Lehava employs a number of Kahanist figures including politician Baruch Marzel, formerly of the outlawed Kach movement. Michael Ben-Ari, a former Israeli Member of Knesset who still views himself as Meir Kahane's follower, is Lehava's spokesman. The lawyer defending Lehava members arrested in December 2014, attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, is another one of the most prominent Kahanists in Israel.

A closely associated NPO called Hemla (Mercy), who for many years focused on 'saving the daughters of Israel' from mixed marriages with Arab men, has received up to $175,000 per year from the state between 2005 and 2013. In 2011 an investigation by Haaretz first brought the issue to light. Part of the amount went as a salary to Bentzi Gopstein, Hemla's public relations director.

Activities

Opposition to interfaith marriages

The organization gained notoriety in 2010 after sending an open letter to Israeli Jewish supermodel Bar Refaeli urging her to break off her relationship with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who is Roman Catholic.

Multiple rebbetzins, acting on behalf of Lehava, issued an open letter urging Israeli women not to associate with "non-Jews". Haaretz quoted the letter as saying, "Don't date non-Jews, don't work at places that non-Jews frequent, and don't do national service with non-Jews;" the letter implied that if they did so, they would be cut off from their "holy race". The letter caused a controversy and was denounced by other rabbis. When a poll was conducted of Jewish Israelis' reaction to the letters denouncing those who rent or sell homes to non-Jews, 44 per cent of Israeli Jews supported the rabbis' call, while 48 per cent were opposed.

The organization has also spoken out against Mark Zuckerberg's marriage to Priscilla Chan.

In 2014 it organised hostile protests against a mixed couple from Jaffa, objecting to the marriage of Mahmoud Mansour, an Israeli Arab, and his bride-to-be, Morel Malka, who converted from Judaism to Islam ahead of the wedding. Given that the conversion had already taken place, technically, the marriage was not an interfaith one. The group was reported as saying "Please come with positive energy and bring loudspeakers and horns. We will ask our sister to return home with us to the Jewish people who are waiting for her," by Israeli news site Arutz Sheva. When the couple appealed to a court to ban the demonstration, a judgement was handed down allowing the protest to proceed, but no closer than 200 metres away from the site of the ceremony in the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion. Haaretz reported that the protesters chanted "death to leftists" and "death to Arabs" despite one of the organisers trying to calm them down.

In 2013 it started a Facebook page with the purpose of identifying mixed Jewish-Arab couples, but the page was shut down in 2014 after there were numerous complaints it had become a repository of racist comments. Liat Bar-Stav, a journalist who went undercover in the Lehava organization, described how their members look for any Jewish females who might be dating Arabs. If members thought they had discovered any, they were to follow Gopstein's instructions: approach the woman, and give her phone number to the organization for further action. "You approach the girl and say, 'Excuse me, I don't have a phone. May I make a call? You call your phone, and that's how you get the number," Gopstein explained to the activists he coached.

Calls for segregation

In addition to opposing interfaith and interethnic marriages, Lehava has encouraged Israelis to report to the organization the names of Jews who rent to Arabs, so that they can be named and shamed publicly. In 2012, the group distributed flyers in east Jerusalem warning Arabs not to visit the mostly Jewish western side of the city. It also campaigned against Jews and Arabs mixing on beaches.

In November 2014 four activists in the group were arrested in Petah Tikva after they distributed propaganda material, then attacked and wounded police. Liat Bar-Stav described a meeting that Gopstein led for his followers, in which he said to them, "Some 45 years ago, Rabbi Kahane said, shouted and cried out that the enemies within us are a cancer and that if we don't take this cancer and get rid of it, we won't continue to exist. Unfortunately, this dangerous cancer of coexistence has metastasized everywhere. There are various ministers in the government who are encouraging coexistence, who are giving them jobs, allowing them into the hi-tech world, allowing them to become doctors." As the crowd responded with booing and cheering, Gopstein continued: "The cancer we spoke about in the beginning has offshoots in the Knesset of Israel too. Thirty years ago, Rabbi Kahane stood up in the Knesset and took out a hangman's noose for traitors, a noose for the Arab MK who was there. It's not a threat, it's a promise, the rabbi said when attacked for doing so. So this is what I want to wish (former MK Azmi) Bishara on behalf of all of you." At this point Gopstein waved a noose. "Your day will come, Azmi! We are waiting for the Israeli government to come and hang you from the tallest tree! Azmi, only thanks to Rabbi Kahane will we make sure you are hanged one day."

In December 2014 three members of Lehava were arrested and charged with the November 29 arson at an integrated Arab-Jewish school. The suspects, Yitzhak Gabbai, and brothers Nahman Twito and Shlomo Twito, attacked the school, according to Shin Bet, "because Jews and Arabs learn together at the school, and the goal was to put opposition to coexistence and assimilation in the public eye". In courtroom photos the three members of the radical group are shown smiling and smirking as they faced charges. Within days of their arrest police completed a raid on the homes of several Lehava members. Lehava's chairman, Bentzi Gopstein, was among those arrested.

Opposition to Christianity in Israel

Lehava had organized demonstrations protesting the presence of Christians in Israel, and in late 2015 demonstrated before the Jerusalem International YMCA, with the crowd shouting: "The Arabs won't defeat us with knives, and the Christians won't buy us with presents!" Gopstein wrote an article for a local website, Kooker, in which he declared: "Missionary work must not be given a foothold.... Let's throw the vampires out of our land before they drink our blood again." He also called for a ban on the Christmas holiday.

Opposition to Lehava

Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) works to expose the Lehava's racism. In May 2016, IRAC stepped up its campaign against Lehava and its chairman, Bentzi Gopstein. IRAC released statistics showing that Lehava's social media efforts were generating approximately 200,000 anti-Arab hate postings per year to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, about a quarter of which call for physical violence against Arabs. Facebook deleted seven Lehava accounts because of improper conduct, but Lehava continues to generate Facebook postings via other accounts.

In May 2016 the Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to the Israeli government encouraging action to be taken to curb Lehava and its leader, Bentzi Gopstein. In the letter to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit the ADL says that Gopstein has referred to Christians as “bloodsucking vampires,” condoned burning Christian churches, and that his Facebook page includes anti-LGBT posts, as well as ones the ADL calls “extremely abusive, racist, inflammatory and violent.” The ADL protested that Israel’s ongoing acceptance of Lehava’s “hateful discourse” was detrimental to the country, and was being “used as a weapon by Israel’s enemies, who use it as a basis for their rushed conclusions and generalizations about Israeli society.”