Israel's education minister voiced support on Saturday for so-called gay "conversion therapy," in a move that drew a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful.
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Rafi Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the national-religious United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work.
"I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this," he told Israel's Channel 12 News.
Citing an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: "First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, 'Let's think, let's study, and let's contemplate.' The objective is first of all for him to know himself well … and then he will decide."
The remarks sparked furor in Israel's center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country where the majority Jewish population mostly identifies as secular or of less stringent religious observance.
The LGBT Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were "benighted."
"Israel's girls and boys must not be exposed to the LGBT-phobia poison being spread by those who purport to deal in education and values. The conversion therapies Peretz preaches [about] are dangerous according to the Israeli Health Ministry and international professional bodies. These therapies have been proven to undermine the mental state and lead to suicidal thoughts."
Shortly after the interview aired at the end of Shabbat, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for "clarification."
"The education minister's remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head," the premier said in a statement.
It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week, after Israeli media reported that he had told fellow cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora amounted to a "second Holocaust."
The comparison stirred up anger among US Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.
Speaking to Channel 12 News, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader.
"I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally – I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades," he said.
Following the outcry over his remarks, Peretz issued a clarification, Saturday evening.
"I did not claim that a boy or girls should be sent to conversion therapy," he said.
"During my years as an educator, I met with students who were in terrible distress over their sexual orientation and chose to receive help from professionals in changing their orientation. What I said in the interview was said out of my own personal familiarity with similar cases."
He said that under his leadership, the Education Ministry "will continue to accept all Israeli girls and boys in Israel as they are, without regard to sexual orientation. I also made this clear in the interview."
Peretz's predecessor at the Education Ministry Naftali Bennett commented on the controversy, Sunday, saying, "Israeli society is comprised of a diverse variety [of people], and no one should be converting anyone else. We accept every person as they are."
Bennett said Peretz's remarks "do not represent the majority of the national-religious public that disapproves of the obsessive war on [members of the LGBT community]."
Yisrael Beytenu party head Avigdor Lieberman joined the criticism, Sunday morning, saying, "Rabbi Peretz's remarks on conversion [therapy] are not a slip of the tongue and not comments that were taken out of context. They come after a long line of remarks by haredi and Zionist haredi leaders, which leave no doubt: Netanyahu wants and is acting to establish a government that is governed by Jewish law."
He said that "in recent months, we have heard and read the clear remarks from National Union leader MK Bezalel Smotrich about Torah law [and] a return to the days of Kings Saul and David, the remarks by Rabbi [Shlomo] Aviner that women have no place in Israeli politics, the ruling by … Shas spiritual leader that pregnant women should not get ultrasounds, and add to that the absurd ruling from last week that saw rabbis in the haredi city of Elad determine Jews should not own dogs as pets. These remarks are a drop in the ocean. Therefore, whoever wants a government run according to Jewish law should vote for Likud or Blue and White. Those who want a broad national government should vote for Yisrael Beytenu."
Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz called Peretz's remarks "grave." He said such remarks were illegitimate in Israel of 2019.
"A Blue and White government will promote equality, tolerance, and acceptance of the other. Every person's right to live according to their beliefs, opinions, orientation is the cornerstone of Israeli democracy and we will defend it with all of our might. We will not lend a hand to the continued radicalization, and we will return Israel to sanity and progress.
Labor party Chairman Amir Peretz voiced sharp criticism of Peretz.
"Your remarks are not human and are not Jewish. … The time has come for you to stop interfering in the personal lives of citizens. Every person has the right to love, to marry, and start a family with whomever they choose."
Noam Dvir, Danielle Roth-Avneri, and Dan Lavie contributed to this report.
