A religious rights organization on Monday called on the police to investigate the head of an extremist anti-assimilation group after he published an op-ed branding Christians \u201cblood-sucking vampires\u201d and calling for them to be expelled from the country.<\/p>\n
Bentzi Gopstein, leader of the Lehava organization, penned an article published on the ultra-Orthodox Kooker website last week decrying the \u201clack of spiritual security\u201d he\u2019s felt in Jerusalem of late because of \u201cour deadly centuries-old enemy \u2014 the Christian church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, a dozen Lehava protesters headed by Gopstein demonstrated outside a Christmas event at Jerusalem\u2019s YMCA, decrying what they termed the \u201cmurder\u201d of Jewish souls.<\/p>\n
Shouting, \u201cYou murdered us in exile,\u201d and condemning European blood libels and historical persecution of the Jews, the small group waved Israeli flags and sang Hanukkah songs outside the venue, with some signs urging all the \u201cimpure\u201d Christians to leave the Holy Land.<\/p>\n
In his Kooker article published December 17 in Hebrew, Gopstein called the establishment of the State of Israel in the mid-20th century \u201cthe most ringing slap in the face the church ever received\u201d after centuries of failed attempts to eliminate the Jews. Since violent methods failed, he writes in his diatribe, \u201cit was decided to invest billions of dollars over the years in order to gain a foothold in the Holy Land and disseminate spiritual poison\u201d through missionary work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Christian is no longer considered a threatening vampire, rather a pleasant, friendly tourist and partner in the Western culture that dominates our lives,\u201d he said, blaming the Israeli education system for not instilling enough Jewish education in students. \u201cThe vampires can send a message of thanks to the government of Israel for making their work much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called on all willing Jews to raise a cry \u201cand fight the devious phenomenon,\u201d referring to Christianity as \u201cthat accursed religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChristmas has no place in the Holy Land,\u201d he concluded. \u201cMissionary work must not be given a foothold. Let\u2019s throw the vampires out of our land before they drink our blood again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A religious rights organization on Monday called on the police to investigate the head of an extremist anti-assimilation group after he published an op-ed branding Christians \u201cblood-sucking vampires\u201d and calling for them to be expelled from the country. Bentzi Gopstein, leader of the Lehava organization, penned an article published on the ultra-Orthodox Kooker website last …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-79"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wewiv.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}