LGBT flag
LGBT flagiStock

Jerusalem's Chief Rabbi, Aryeh Stern, on Tuesday morning sent a letter to Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, asking him not to allow LGBT flags to be hung in streets where the Pride Parade is scheduled to pass through.

In the letter, Rabbi Stern wrote, "While I know that the mayor has no legal ability to prevent the parade, I therefore request that you at least give an order barring waving of the flags which make the city ugly."

In an interview with Army Radio, Rabbi Stern explained, "I didn't ask to ban parade participants from waving the flags. I asked that the municipality, which is hanging flags along the route, not do that, especially near the city's magnificent synagogues. It's not appropriate that the flags should fly there."

"Flags are an expression of friendship, participation, and identification. We're talking about hurting feelings - what they symbolize hurts the feelings of much greater portions of the population than those who do want the flags.

"I'm not trying to harm the parade itself or the people in it, or their personal behaviors. We have no interest in that. That's not the issue. The issue is the public space, and I represent the opinion of many good people in Jerusalem. This is an explicit prohibition in the Torah, these are serious things, and for this we wave flags? Imagine if we were waving flags in support of a movement to eat pig.

"The parade will happen, that I know. I'm not going to participate in it and I'm not going to protest it. The issue is the flags. I did not think my letter would be published, and I did not publish it. It could be that I should've asked without writing a letter - I admit that I made a mistake, I did not think it would make such a ruckus."

On Tuesday morning, LGBT activists hung rainbow flags outside of the main office of the Jerusalem Rabbinate Tuesday morning, and scrawled graffiti on the floor in front of the building.