Gideon Levy
Gideon LevyShulo Shalom/TPS

Rabbi Elishama Cohen, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Homesh yeshiva, together with the yeshiva's director Shmuel Wendy, filed a lawsuit against Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy for NIS 500,000.

The lawsuit was filed following a series of statements by Levy against the yeshiva and its students in an interview with Channel 13 News, on Ayala Hasson's program. Among other things, Levy called the yeshiva's students 'subhuman' and blamed them for a faked incident in which it was claimed that an Arab was allegedly hanged from a tree and had his feet burned.

In the lawsuit, which was filed through the law office of Menashe Yado, the term 'subhuman' was traced to Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi Gestapo.

The lawsuit further stated that Gideon Levy is identified with the radical left, that the accusations against the yeshiva are ugly and false, and that his statements towards the yeshiva and its students are bigoted and racist.

In the lawsuit, Adv. Yado explained the damage that the false accusations and statements cause to the yeshiva and that "the blood and dignity of the yeshiva members was made cheap."

In his interview on Channel 13 News, Levy claimed that "I was in Homesh several times and saw the people, and I saw how they behave, and I saw a young Palestinian that the Homesh people had hanged on a tree and burned his feet. There are at least 20 documented cases that come from Homesh, so these people are allowed to be called subhumans ... If you are not comfortable with calling them subhuman, let's call them human scum."