What do Israelis think of the group Lehava and what do you think about the group Lehava ?

I am not an Israeli but a Palestinian. Since you also asked “what do you think about the group Lehava?” I think I have the right to answer this question. Based on my nationality and for very clear reasons, I have every right to loathe a Zionist Jewish supremacist group like Lehava because they hate Palestinians and staunchly oppose Israeli-Palestinian unity. However, I prefer facts over opinions. Here are the facts:
  • Established in 2009, Lehava is a far-right group that works to prevent Jews, particularly Jewish women, from mixing with Palestinians and other non-Jews. Its name is a Hebrew acronym for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land.”
  • Many of Lehava's members, including head Benny Gopstein, are followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who espoused virulently racist, anti-Arab views. Kahane's Kach movement was labeled a terrorist organization and outlawed by Israel and the United States after Kach follower Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians as they prayed at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994. (See here for facts on Kahane and Kach.)
  • According to a May 2011 investigation by Haaretz Magazine, leading Lehava members, including Gopstein, have close ties to a government-funded non-profit organization, also run by Kach followers, called Hemla ("Mercy"), which claims to help "girls from broken homes who are in danger of forced conversion and of becoming involved in crime." According to the report, since 2005, Hemla has received between $150,000 and $175,000 (USD) each year from the Israeli government, providing about half of its operating budget. Gopstein is identified as Hemla's "director of public relations" and receives a salary of about $10,000 (USD) a year. In 2010, Hemla director Rachel Baranes told a reporter that Hemla was established to help in "saving Jewish girls from assimilation, whether it's foreign workers, Arabs, [or] people with no connection to our religion."
  • In February 2011, Gopstein was invited to testify before the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women by Knesset member Tzipi Hotovely, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, in a discussion on "assimilation." He warned the committee about the alleged dangers of Jews and non-Jews mixing, and urged the government to do more to fight against it and to "bring more talk about Judaism, more talk against assimilation, into the schools."
LEHAVA'S ACTIVITIES
  • In August 2012, days after a high-profile attack by dozens of Jewish teenagers on four young Palestinians in West Jerusalem that was described as a "lynching" by police, Lehava members distributed flyers in East Jerusalem warning Arabs not to visit the western, mostly Jewish, part of Jerusalem. The flyers, which were titled "Dear Arab guy," stated in Hebrew on one side and broken Arabic on the other:

We don't want you to get hurt!... If you are thinking of visiting Jerusalem malls or the pedestrian street [Midrechov] with the intention of dating Jewish girls - this isn't the place for you. You may walk around in your own village freely and find girlfriends there, not here! Last week an Arab who thought he might find Jewish girls got hurt. We don't wish for you to get hurt, so respect our daughters' honor. As we mind it dearly! - Lehava organization

According to police, the attack took place after a Jewish girl claimed she had been raped by an Arab man a few weeks earlier. Following the attack, Gopstein praised the assailants in an interview captured on video (click "CC" for English subtitles), saying they "lifted Jewish honor from the floor and did what the police are supposed to do."
  • In May 2012, Lehava members distributed phony wedding invitations in Jerusalem that asked people to join

"Michal [a Jewish name] and Mohammad as they celebrate their marriage on a Friday night at the Shahid (martyr) events hall in Ramallah,"

with a warning that:

"If you don't want your daughter's wedding invitation to look like this then... Don't let her work with Arabs or do national service with non-Jews, don't let her work in place that employs enemies and don't bring home migrant workers."

  • In the summer of 2011, Lehava launched a campaign called "Coast Guard" to prevent Jewish women from mingling with Arab men on beaches.
  • In December 2010, Lehava initiated and distributed a letter signed by the wives of some 30 prominent rabbis urging Jewish women not to date, socialize, or work with Arabs. The letter, whose signatories included the wife of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party, which sits in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, stated:

"Don't date them, don't work where they work and don't perform National Service with them."

  • Also in December 2010, Lehava organized a rally to protest against Jews renting apartments to non-Jews in the city of Bat Yam, and started a telephone hotline for Jewish Israelis to "report" other Jews who rent apartments to Arabs.
  • In March 2010, Lehava made internationalnews when it issued a letter, written by far-right activist Baruch Marzel, calling on Israeli model Bar Refaeli to break up with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio because he isn't Jewish.
  • In 2010, Lehava called for a boycott of a supermarket in a West Bank settlement that employed Palestinian men alongside Jewish women.
  • Lehava also offers a service providing kosher approval of businesses that don't employ Arabs.
  • In July 2012, Lehava posted a video on its website of two former members of the Haganah, precursor to the Israeli army, bragging about castrating Palestinian men during Israel's creation.
  • The organization has also spoken out against against Chan.
  • In 2013, Lehava started a Facebook page with the purpose of identifying mixed Jewish-Arab couples. Still, 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 looked for Jewish females who might be dating Arabs. If members thought they had discovered any, they would follow Gopstein's instructions: approach the woman, and forward 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.
  • 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 co-existence has metastasized everywhere. There are various ministers in the government who are encouraging co-existence, who are giving them jobs, allowing them into the hi-tech world, allowing them to become doctors."

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 29 November 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 co-existence 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.
  • 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.
  • In 2017, Lehava protested the Jerusalem gay pride parade. Prior to the 2018 march, Gopstein called LGBT activists "terrorists" and urged supporters to counterdemonstrate with banners saying "Jerusalem is not Sodom". Four Lehava supporters were arrested during the parade. In 2020, Lehava urged its supporters to the parade.
LEHAVA MEMBERS:
Details about the history and organizational structure of Lehava are murky, but it was reportedly founded by Mosis Zion in 2009, and is led by Benny Gopstein who is variously described in the press as Lehava's "director" or "chairman."
Benny Gopstein (or Benzi/ Bentzi Gofshtein)
  • Gopstein is a former leader of the radical Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and former student of Kahane. Gopstein is best known for being the leader of a notorious hate group called Lehava that tries to prevent the mixing of Arabs and Jews, particularly Jewish women. Its members are infamous for roaming the streets of Jerusalem wearing black shirts and violently assaulting Palestinian men, particularly those in the company of Jewish women. In 2015, two Lehava members pled guilty to an arson attack against a bilingual Jerusalem school dedicated to coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Gopstein is also a central figure in another racist group called Hemla, which is funded by the Israeli government and closely associated with Lehava. Both are Kahanist organizations.
  • During the September 2019 election campaign, Gopstein was banned by the Supreme Court from running on the Jewish Power list because of his extreme racism.
  • In November 2019, Gopstein was charged with incitement to racism, violence, and terror, following a series of racist statements about Palestinians. One of the charges was based on a 2013 television interview in which he said that Palestinian men who are dating or married to Jewish women should be dealt with violently, stating: “There are those who deserve to have violence used against them. Yes, if an Arab hits on a Jewish woman, talk is not what’s needed.”
  • In addition to his anti-Arab racism, Gopstein is also virulently anti-Christian. In 2015, he publicly called for the burning of churches and the expulsion of Christians from Palestine/Israel. When asked during a debate whether he was advocating the burning of churches, Gopstein replied: “Of course I am.” The same year, he published an article on a religious website calling Christians “vampires and blood suckers” and concluding: “Christmas has no place in the Holy Land… Let us remove the vampires before they once again drink our blood.”
  • In 2014, Gopstein was arrested by Israel police and held on suspicion of incitement to violence and terror after several Lehava members set fire to a bilingual mixed Jewish and Arab school in Jerusalem and defaced it with racist graffiti, including the slogans “Kahane was right” and “Death to the Arabs.”
  • Following the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron by Kach follower Baruch Goldstein, whom Gopstein has called a "hero," Gopstein was jailed without charge or trial, a practice Israeli authorities usually reserve for Palestinians, because of his ties to the Kach movement.
  • In 1990, Gopstein was arrested on suspicion of murdering an Arab couple who were shot to death not long after Kahane was assassinated in New York. He was later released, and no one was convicted of the crime.
Baruch Marzel
  • A far-right extremist from Boston who also lives in a settlement on occupied Palestinian land in Hebron, Marzel was Kahane’s “right-hand man” and a longtime Kach spokesman. He also led Kach after Kahane’s death.
  • During the September 2019 Israeli election campaign, Marzel was banned by the Supreme Court from running with Jewish Power because of his long history of extreme racism and inciting hatred and violence against Palestinians and left-wing Israelis.Marzel has a lengthy police record, including assaults on Palestinians for which he received suspended prison sentences, vandalizing Palestinian cars, and provoking disturbances in Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank.
  • In March 2006, Marzel called for the murder of Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery. He also blamed an outbreak of bird flu in southern Israel on Israel's withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 under the so-called "disengagement" plan
  • Marzel has a lengthy police record, including assaults on Palestinians for which he received suspended prison sentences, vandalizing Palestinian cars, and provoking disturbances in Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank.
  • In 2006, Marzel sent an open letter to Linor Abargil, asking her not to marry non-Jewish Lithuanian NBA player Šarūnas "Šaras" Jasikevičius. A similar open letter was addressed in March 2010 to Israeli model Bar Refaeli, urging her not to marry her non-Jewish boyfriend at that time, American actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Representing the Lehava organization, Marzel tried to convince Refaeli that her ancestors would have opposed such a marriage.
  • Marzel is also notorious for his anti-gay views, stating before a gay pride parade in 2010 that homosexuality

"is a disease of choice, and a man can change his taste and his ways... [W]hen someone has AIDS they tell them not to infect others, so why are these people allowed to march here in Jerusalem and infect us with their disease?"

Now I will leave you to your own conclusions about Lehava, its members, and admirers.