Grandson of Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Who Called Gays ‘Evil,’ To Marry Boyfriend This Week

The grandson of one of the most revered rabbinical figures in the Jewish world will marry his gay partner this week.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a well-renowned rabbi for Sephardi Jews and a Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, once denounced “homosexuals [as] completely evil.” However, his grandson, Ovadia Cohen, who was raised in his grandfather’s house, is openly gay and is about to wed his boyfriend in a ceremony led by a gay Orthodox woman.

“We are fully out and proud,” his partner Amichai Landsman told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “Ovadia made a really brave step in being in a relationship with me and we are happy to be getting married.”

Cohen, as a scion of one of the most important religious families in Israel, was thought to have been raised in deeply conservative and homophobic atmosphere. Rabbi Yosef, who died in 2013, also founded the Shas political party that has played an important role in a succession of Israel’s governments, due to its base among Jews who emigrated from across the Middle East. He was adored by his followers and hundreds of thousands attended his funeral.

Indeed, his uncle, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, ruled that it was forbidden to let children study with “perverted” gay teachers and last year a Shas lawmaker was expelled from the party for attending his nephew’s gay wedding.

Cohen kept his sexuality secret for many years and even married a woman with whom he had two children. He reportedly met Landsman, who grew up in a religious Zionist community, in Haifa, Israel. Cohen only has “very partial” contact with his family following his coming out, according to reports, and only a handful are expected to be among the 200 guests at their wedding.

The source of Judaism’s traditional position on homosexuality and gay issues stem from two verses in Leviticus that express unequivocal condemnation of male homosexual sex (although it is not clear whether what is referred to is intercourse or all sexual acts between men). According to Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

In 2015, an Orthodox Jew, Yishai Schlissel, attacked the annual Jerusalem gay pride parade stabbing six in the rampage, one of whom died. He had just been released from prison following a similar crime in 2005.

However, on the more liberal wing of Orthodoxy, rabbis are beginning to question the complete and aggressive intolerance of the other side of the Orthodox spectrum.

This has not stopped Israel developing the most vibrant gay scene in the Middle East with the Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv recognized globally as a top destination for gay tourism and culture.