On Thursday, August 6, Knesset members Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash – Joint List) and Michal Biran (Zionist Union), heads of the Anti-Racist Lobby in the Knesset, requested that the Attorney General open a criminal investigation against Benzi Gopstein, the leader of the extreme-right group Lehava, who said in a meeting with rabbinical students that Christian houses of worship should be torched.

Israeli extreme right-wing activist Benzi Gopstein, leader of the Lehava organization, takes part in a protest near the tram station in East Jerusalem, October 23, 2014. The sign reads: “Jews, Revenge.” (Photo: Activestills)

“Churches should be burned,” Gopstein said on Wednesday, August 5, before an audience of hundreds at a Jewish religious school, according to the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Rabbi Moshe Klein, who attended the lecture, questioned Gopstein’s position, arguing that today’s world requires a rejection of such intolerant approaches. Journalist Beny Ravinovich, who was present at the meeting, was also shocked and astounded with what Benzi Gopstein had to say.

After a verbal tug of war, Gopstein said he was willing to do 50 years in prison for what he believed, and claimed not to be inciting violence, but merely quoting the position of Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon), the preeminent Medieval Jewish scholar. Lehava subscribes to ideas that denounce “assimilation between Jewish and non-Jews,” and also condemns homosexuality.

On Friday, August 7, the heads of the Catholic Church in Israel also filed a complaint for incitement with the police against Gopstein.