© (AFP via Getty Images)An Israeli senior citizen receives her second Pfizer Covid vaccine at the Maccabi Health Services drive-in vaccination center, in the northern coastal city of Haifa
An ultra-Orthodox rabbi has told his followers to avoid getting a
Covid vaccine because it can "make them gay".
Israeli media reported that
Rabbi Daniel Asor, who has amassed a large online following, also claimed inoculation efforts were part of a "global malicious government" trying to "establish a new world order".
While his claim of a link between the vaccine and homosexuality is factually incorrect, it also contradicts statements from leading orthodox rabbis who have called on their followers to come forward for a coronavirus jab.
According to news outlet
Israel Yahom, Mr
Asor used a recent sermon to claim: "Any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies. Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so ... it can cause opposite tendencies," seemingly referring to homosexuality.
Israel is aiming to have administered vaccines to 5 million of its 9 million citizens and reopen the economy by mid-March, as it presses ahead with one of the fastest rollouts anywhere in the world.
More than 2 million Israelis have already received one dose of the jab while around 225,000 have had a second shot.
A senior health official said on Friday the country was in the "final stages" of the pandemic and those aged 45 and over would be offered the vaccine from Sunday, in a sign of the rapid pace of the Israeli programme, which has already reached more than one in five of its population.
"Israel, with the scale of its vaccine drive, is showing the world that there is an exit strategy," Ronni Gamzu, who was advising the government on Covid before returning to his job as director of a hospital in Tel Aviv, told Channel 12 news.
Comment: The
Daily Mail reports on the Iranian cleric:
An Iranian cleric has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay.
Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the claims on messaging platform Telegram, where he has almost 210,000 followers, The Jerusalem Post reported.
According to the publication, Tabrizian wrote on the platform: 'Don't go near those who have had the COVID vaccine. They have become homosexuals.'
Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the claims on messaging platform Telegram, where he has almost 210,000 followers
Prominent LGBTQ campaigner Peter Tatchell said the claims were 'demonizing' both the vaccine and the gay community.
'Ayatollah Tabrizian combines scientific ignorance with a crude appeal to homophobia,' he said.
Iranian dissident Sheina Vojoudi said: 'Like other clerics in the regime, also Tabrizian relates all the shortages [shortcomings] to sexuality.
'The clerics in Iran are suffering from lack of knowledge and humanity. Actually, his goal of spreading nonsense is to try to scare people [out] of getting vaccinated, while the leader of the regime and other officials got Pfizer, and they don't provide it for the people with the excuse that they don't trust the West.'
The controversial figure has made several claims about Western medicine. In January last year, video was shared of him burning an American scientific textbook, claiming that Islamic medicine made such books 'irrelevant'.
Homosexuality is punishable by execution in Iran.
It is thought that thousands of gays have been executed in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 2019, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javid Zarif told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle: 'Our society has moral principles.
'And we live according to these principles. These are moral principles concerning the behavior of people in general. And that means that the law is respected and the law is obeyed,'
There are other reasons, founded in science, for, where possible, avoiding the experimental coronavirus vaccines. And there is evidence that coronavirus
affects the brain:
Also check out SOTT radio's:
Objective:Health - Protecting Yourself Against Vaccine Side Effects
Comment: The Daily Mail reports on the Iranian cleric: There are other reasons, founded in science, for, where possible, avoiding the experimental coronavirus vaccines. And there is evidence that coronavirus affects the brain:
- The Inanity of RNA Vaccines For COVID-19
- COVID Mass Vaccination Experiment: Prepare For The Worst With This Health Protocol
Also check out SOTT radio's: Objective:Health - Protecting Yourself Against Vaccine Side Effects