Leftists, LGBT activists, and members of the Reform movement are planning to demonstrate against Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar on Sunday in response to his recent comments on Reform Jews and homosexuals.
Organizers have called upon Rabbi Amar to resign his position, saying that his comments disqualify him from serving as a public figure. The event will be held opposite the offices of the Jerusalem Chief Rabbi.
On Thursday, Rabbi Amar, who previously served as Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel gave an interview to Israel Hayom, discussing a wide range of subjects and touching upon the relationship of religion and state.
During the interview, Rabbi Amar slammed the Reform movement as “wicked”, and invoked the biblical condemnation of homosexual acts as an “abomination”.
Sunday’s rally against the Jerusalem Chief Rabbi is being organized by the Yerushalmim faction of the city council, a movement founded by Kulanu MK Rachel Azaria.
The lesbian organization Bat Kol has also signed onto the event, as has the Labor Party’s student division in the Hebrew University, and members of the Reform movement.
Yerushalmim member and city councilman Aharon Leibovich slammed Rabbi Amar and called on Jerusalem residents to attend the demonstration.
“When Rabbi Amar, who is supposed to be a spiritual beacon, instead works to spread darkness and division – when the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem permits himself in the name of the Torah to so explicitly attack sectors of the population, we need to rise up and declare: Enough.
“We need to remember and to remind that ‘The ways [of the Torah] are the ways of pleasantness’ – the way of the Torah is acceptance and inclusion, not hatred and division. The time has come to put an end to incitement in the name of the Torah, and enough to going on the offensive and then hiding behind the mantle [of religion].
“I call upon everyone in society who cares about Jerusalem and pluralism to join the demonstration and the call which must be clearly understood: Rabbi Amar you must resign.”
