Lehava - Wikipedia
A closely associated NPO called Hemla (Mercy), which for many years focused on "saving the daughters of Israel" from mixed marriages with Arab men, has received up to $175,000 per year from the state between 2005 and 2013. In 2011, an investigation by Haaretz first brought the issue to light. Part of the amount went as a salary to Bentzi Gopstein, Hemla's public relations director.[15]
Multiple rebbetzins, acting on behalf of Lehava, issued an open letter urging Israeli women not to associate with "non-Jews". Haaretz quoted the letter as saying, "Don't date non-Jews, don't work at places that non-Jews frequent, and don't do national service with non-Jews;" the letter implied that if they did so, they would be cut off from their "holy race".[28] The letter caused a controversy and was denounced by other rabbis.[29][30] When a poll was conducted of Jewish Israelis' reaction to the letters denouncing those who rent or sell homes to non-Jews, 44 per cent of Israeli Jews supported the rabbis' call, while 48 per cent were opposed.[31]
The organization has also spoken out against Mark Zuckerberg's marriage to Priscilla Chan.[32]
In 2014, it organized hostile protests against a mixed couple from Jaffa, objecting to the marriage of Mahmoud Mansour, an Israeli Arab, and his bride-to-be, Morel Malka, who converted from Judaism to Islam ahead of the wedding. The group was reported as saying, "Please come with positive energy and bring loudspeakers and horns. We will ask our sister to return home with us to the Jewish people who are waiting for her", by the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva. When the couple appealed to a court to ban the demonstration, a judgement was handed down allowing the protest to proceed, but no closer than 200 metres away from the site of the ceremony in the Israeli town of Rishon Letzion.[33] Haaretz reported that the protesters chanted "death to leftists" and "death to Arabs", despite one of the organizers trying to calm them down.[34]
In 2013, it started a Facebook page with the purpose of identifying mixed Arab–Jewish 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
