Group slams Dutch rabbi’s suspension

The suspension of Amsterdam’s chief rabbi for signing a statement on “curing” homosexuality is “verging on fascism,” a committee of several Orthodox Jews told a Dutch newspaper.

The group said in a letter to the Volksrant newspaper that it is “shocking” that a chief rabbi in the Netherlands has been suspended for his statements on “centuries-old religious truths.”

Amsterdam’s Orthodox Jewish community suspended Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag of New York for signing the “Declaration on the Torah Approach to Homosexuality,” which states, “We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. Behaviors are changeable. The Torah does not forbid something which is impossible to avoid,” and that “therapy and teshuvah” can overcome homosexuality.

Ralbag travels to the Netherlands a couple of times a year to rule on matters of Jewish law. — jta