Rabbi Mendel Kessin believes the coronavirus was sent to remove gay people from the earth (YouTube/YIBONEH)

A Jewish radio station has apologised for broadcasting a rabbi who claimed coronavirus is a “designer drug” sent from God to eradicate gay people.

The Jewish-Australian radio station J-AIR said it “unreservedly apologises” for airing the comments, which were made on the Tamar Yonah Show, a syndicated Israeli talk show.

The shocking claim came from one of Tamar Yonah’s guests, Rabbi Mendel Kessin, who recently argued that the coronavirus was created by God because of his opposition to limits on free speech.

The rabbi then went a step further, claiming the pandemic is God’s tool for eradicating “major problems”, namely homosexual people, who he believes are ” an incredible corruption of man’s nature”.

“Basically [God] is 98 percent finished, that’s how close we are to the redemption,” Kessin said. “However, there are certain problems that must be addressed by God in order for the redemption to actually happen.

“And what we begin to see is that the pandemic is an exact designer drug, if you want to use that expression, that will remove these problems.

“The plague itself is a vehicle,” he continued, “an instrument, to accelerate the messianic process by removing these major problems … The first major problem is that man has corrupted his nature. There is a tremendous amount of, ah, what’s called immorality in the world today. It’s widespread.

“There’s, in Hebrew it’s called ‘prichus’. We could say it’s also in the form of homosexuality, and gays and so on and so forth, where all of a sudden the gender differentiation is, is tremendously blurred. So that is an incredible corruption of man’s nature.”

J-AIR has since distanced itself from the rabbi’s comments and has taken the episode offline. The also issued a statement on their website apologising for airing the episode in the first place.

“J-AIR apologises unreservedly for broadcasting and podcasting comments that vilified the gay community in one of its recent programs,” it read.

J-AIR president George Banksy added that Rabbi Kessin’s views were “totally unacceptable”and has begun a review process to see how the comments had made it to air, given that the show was pre-recorded.

He added: “J-AIR is very aware of its role as a community broadcaster and strictly adheres to the rules of this country, particularly the ones referring to broadcasting as mandated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.”

These laws require the station to ensure that the content they broadcast is not likely to incite or perpetuate hatred against or vilify any person or group on the basis of, among other things, sexual preference, gender identity or HIV/AIDS status.