Dreams Into Lightning

Cops Blocked Religious Sympathizers from Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade

In 2006, two young religious Israelis wanted to show their support for the gay rights march in Jerusalem. But the police were having none of it. Jerusalem Post:

When Hebrew University students Isaac and Shlomo wanted to demonstrate their solidarity with the Jerusalem parade in 2006, police prevented them from entering parade grounds. Their crime? Wearing kippot.

"Because we're religious, the police assumed we were there to attack," Isaac explains. "We were there to support democracy, to show that as religious Jews we support gay rights, and instead we were treated like criminals."

When the two students, both 25 at the time, first attempted to enter the parade grounds, they were taken aside into a tent and strip-searched by the police. "We agreed because they told us that after we were searched, we could go inside," says Isaac.
Their participation in the parade was not a matter of personal grievance, but of idealism, explains Isaac, saying that he was determined to demonstrate his support of a marginalized community.

When police prevented the two from joining the parade, Isaac says he felt "hurt. I felt betrayed by the system, that they made assumptions about us [religious people] ... that they didn't allow us to support the same people that they were trying to protect."

"This year, I wore a hat to cover my kippa, and they let me in," he adds. ...

Really, really sad. Read the whole story at the link. A tip of the kippah to my gay Orthodox friend in San Francisco for passing this on.

Gay Palestinian Beaten at Pride Rally

Via American Thinker, Bookworm Room links to this story at SFGate:

A group of gay Palestinian Americans canceled a planned pride march in East Jerusalem on Friday after one of them was beaten unconscious by a local man who said he was from the Waqf Muslim religious authority.

The beating incident occurred on the same day an Israeli gay pride rally went ahead as scheduled, though without a planned march through city streets. The march had been called off after threats by religious and right-wing opponents to mount huge counterdemonstrations. Only minor violence marred the event. ...

In the East Jerusalem beating, two men -- one wielding a knife -- came looking for the group of gay Palestinian Americans who were staying at the Faisal Hostel near the Damascus Gate of the Old City. One of the assailants identified himself as being from the Waqf, the clerical trust that administers Muslim religious sites in the city.

"I'm pretty terrified right now," said Daoud, an MBA student from Detroit who declined to give his full name. "We left the hostel immediately, but when my friend went back to collect some things, they were waiting for him. They asked if he was with 'the homos' and then started beating him." ...

Daoud said nine gay Palestinian Americans had come to Jerusalem to join the pride march. "Maybe I was just being naive. I heard about the pride rally, and I thought it would be nice for us to do something together as a gay community," he said. "We got a different kind of reception instead."

In America, he said, "you have some tolerance and appreciation and understanding of what it means to be gay and to be a Palestinian. We're discovering the hard way it's not so acceptable here."

Remarks. I won't adopt the sneering tone I've seen some conservative commentators take toward incidents like this, as if it's all a big joke. But it does speak volumes about the gulf between free societies and repressive ones. I'm glad Daoud wasn't injured more seriously. And I'm glad these guys are waking up to the homophobia that's still rampant and dangerous in the Arab-Muslim world - even if it was a rude awakening.

Jerusalem Gay Pride Wrap-Up

In the end, the event was held in a stadium.

CNN:

A few thousand gays and their supporters rallied in Jerusalem on Friday under heavy security, going ahead with a festival that has sparked religious protests and highlighted deep divisions in Israeli society.

... Organizers had planned a gay pride street parade but cancelled it after police said they needed to beef up security to guard against threatened Palestinian attacks following a deadly Israeli army shelling attack in Gaza this week.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews had also threatened to disrupt the march through the holy city. There have been nightly protests in Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods against the parade.

...Police said they arrested several religious youths near the venue who were carrying knives and brass knuckles. There were also a few minor scuffles between right-wing opponents of the event and gay rights activists in the city but little violence.

Arutz Sheva:

Event organizers reported that some 4,000 people attended Friday’s gay pride event in the Givat Ram area of the capital. About 3,000 policemen were on hand to maintain law and order. There were no serious disturbances reported.

Gay.com:

Police security worries spiraled after an errant Israeli artillery shells killed 19 civilians in Gaza on Wednesday and Palestinian militants vowed to carry out suicide bombings in Israel in retaliation.

Responding to those concerns, Pride organizers agreed to turn the parade into a rally, held inside the fenced-in stadium of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, which was ringed by mounted police and anti-riot units.

This article at Time points out some things you should know about Israeli culture:

The fuss over the Gay Pride Parade also exposed some of the seismic cracks inside Israeli society, where modern, secular values collide with fiercely defended religious traditions. The sharp Tel Aviv-Jerusalem rivalry illustrates this divide. Tel Aviv prides itself on its hip nightclubs and a laid-back, cosmopolitan attitude, while an hour's drive away, in some Jerusalem neighborhoods, ultra-orthodox men re-create the customs of 17th century Poland and wear long, black waistcoats and beaver hats that make them broil in the Mediterranean sun.

Making up half of the Holy City's Jewish residents, the ultra-Orthodox ride their own buses, send their kids to religious schools and have the power to close off their neighborhoods to cars on the Sabbath. Any Tel Aviv visitor wandering into these austere communities in shorts and a T-shirt on the Sabbath runs the risk of getting clobbered by a rock.

Even Jerusalem's gays are more subdued than Tel Aviv's. Organizer Canetti says she asked Tel Aviv's participants to tone down their sexy costumes. "We're not having floats or naked men flashing their asses," she says. "We just want to tell people, hey, we're here. We have a right to exist."

Now for my thoughts.

As regular readers of this site know, I originally opposed the Jerusalem parade because I feared it would result in a net setback for gay rights in Israel, and because I was worried about the negative image of Israeli Jews that would likely result from the haredi protests.

But the gay marchers (who, as the previous article indicates, did not copy the notoriously provocative fashions of gay pride events elsewhere) are not responsible for the behavior of the haredi (so-called "ultra-orthodox") Jews. If religious zealots chose to throw a collective temper tantrum in front of the world, they would have nobody but themselves to blame for the resulting damage to the image of Jews everywhere.

The gay pride event challenged Jerusalem's traditional religious community to grow up. It was never a question of whether the hareidi orthodox would approve the event - no one would expect them to - but how they would choose to express their disapproval. Ironically, while reading descriptions of the rioting and the self-justifications of the hareidim, I was once again reminded of the parallel between the insular worldview of Israel's orthodox and that of American left-wingers, which I previously explored here:

Like the religious Zionist movement, the American Left was the only segment of society that was strenghtened, not weakened, by the last war - in our case, Vietnam. Over the next three decades, the liberal movement - that is, the increasingly dogmatic ideology that called itself "liberalism" - consolidated its hold on our media, our educational and cultural institutions. Liberal communities like Berkeley and neighborhoods like, well, the one I live in, ensured that left-leaning Americans could live comfortably without having to rub elbows with "red-staters".

Liberal Americans, guided by a "deep internal sense of being in the right without asking for or needing external confirmation," built and strengthened their own communities but rarely stopped to ask themselves what they might learn from their conservative neighbors...

The compromises made by each side in this controversy are part of the necessary process of Israel's development as a nation. Even the most basic steps - renouncing lewdness and violence - are evidence that the process continues as it must. In the end it can only strengthen Israel's religious community, its gay community, and its society as a whole.

Finally, let me leave you with this article about Israeli lesbian Avigail Sperber, which comes by way of Sarah at Israelity:

Avigail Sperber, 33, is a film director and cinematographer. She has made several documentaries and a short movie, and is currently working on her first full-length film. Her father is Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber, who teaches Talmud at Bar-Ilan University and received the Israel Prize for his achievements in his field. For many years, he chaired the public council for state religious Jewish education. Sperber found it especially difficult to accept the disclosure of his daughter's sexual identity. However, his public position, Avigail stresses, was never a factor in her family's acceptance of her lesbianism. ...

For Avigail, the high point in her family's acceptance of her was reached a year ago, when her younger sister Shuli, who had become ultra-Orthodox, was to be married to a young man who had also become ultra-Orthodox. It was considered only natural to invite both Avigail and her present partner, film director Netali Baron (whose film, "Metamorphosis," about four rape victims, was screened this week on Israel Television's Channel 1). Hannah felt this was not enough and began inviting other lesbian friends of Avigail's whose families had severed contact with them. ("Some girls are no longer welcome in their own homes, even on holidays, even without their partner.")

Two years ago, Hannah started a support group for the religious parents of homosexual/lesbian children (fathers were invited, but only the mothers actually attended). Monthly meetings were held at the Sperber home in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Over the past few months they have not met, but Hannah said this week that the controversy generated by the gay pride parade is a good reason to reactivate the group.

Hannah: "Initially, I attended a parental support group at the Open House [a center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or GLBT, community in Jerusalem]. However, some parents didn't like going there. That's why I launched the group in my home. There are various levels of attitude with respect to the children in this group. One mother, who's very extreme, said she wouldn't invite her daughter to the weddings or other occasions of her siblings. Another mother, a widow, moved me when she declared that she loved her homosexual son very much. Her greatest fear was that he would stop being religious...

Read the rest at the link.

At its best, Israel stands as a model of what a free and democratic society in the Middle East could be. It can, in effect, say to its Arab and Muslim neighbors: "This is what democracy looks like."

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.

J'lem Mayor "Will Not Give In to Violence"

Arutz Sheva: 'Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky announced that he will not be intimidated nor will he give into violence, physical or verbal. The mayor made his statement on Tuesday night after police extricated him from a Meah Shearim building uninjured. Protestors against the Gay Pride Parade began hurling rocks at a Meah Shearim building after learning the mayor was visiting the area.'

MK Eldad: Religious Jews Must Have Same Rights as Gay Marchers

A religious Knesset member argues that if freedom of movement applies to the Gay Pride march in Jerusalem, it must also apply to Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount. Works for me.

Arutz Sheva:

Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad wrote to the attorney general today demanding that Jewish worshippers on the Temple Mount be accorded the same civil rights protection as homosexual parade marchers.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Tuesday, MK Eldad (National Union-NRP) called for the state's chief legal counsel to apply the principles he elucidated regarding the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem to the rights of Jews to worship on the Temple Mount. As of now, police enforce a ban on Jewish worship on the Mount, Judaism's holiest site, due to threats of violence on the part of Muslims, who were allowed to maintain jurisdiction over the mosques on the Mount even after Israel conquered it in 1967. The ban is in effect despite Israeli lower court decisions stating that, in principle, Jews should have freedom of access and of worship on the Temple Mount. ...

On Monday, Atty. Gen. Mazuz rejected a police recommendation to ban the parade, saying, "We have to make a decision, either we give in to threats or we deal with them. We have to exert efforts to find an equation so that it can be secured." Mazuz ordered the police to work together with representatives of the Open House Gay pride organization to find a way to hold the event "with a modest character."

Further addressing the apparent inconsistency in the application of the law in the capital, Eldad pressed the attorney general: "You support the 'modest' right to protest of the [homosexual] community in Jerusalem, but you must surely know that a Jew caught standing with closed eyes and murmuring in a whisper is ejected from the Temple Mount."

Commentary. I like this. Eldad may not be thrilled about the court decision ruling that the gay parade can continue, but he understood that the principle behind it could work in his favor too. And he's right: If threats of violence are not permitted to deter the Gay Pride event, then why should the Jews' established freedom to worship on the Temple Mount be held hostage to threats?

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.

Israeli "Stormtroopers"

"Black clad stormtroopers" is how Akiva at Israpundit characterizes the Israeli security forces.

You're a class act, Akiva. Daily Kos couldn't have done better.

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.

Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade Reconsidered

Last week, I argued against the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. In this post, I'm going to look at it from a different angle.

In my previous post, I asserted that

a gay pride parade in Jerusalem is a confrontational, provocative gesture. It will do nothing to improve the attitude of straight Israelis toward gay people.

My reasoning was that forcing the issue of a gay pride parade in Jerusalem would cause a backlash among moderate Israelis which would result in a net setback, rather than an advance, for gay rights in Israel. And this may very well be true.

But I think what was really bothering me about the parade was the knowledge that certain orthodox Jewish fanatics would resort to all kinds of thuggish tactics to protest the event. Last year, a fundamentalist fruitcake named Yishai Schlissel stabbed and injured three people at the 2005 Gay Pride event in Jerusalem. He was convicted of attempted murder. Yediot:

The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday convicted Yishai Schlissel, a resident of the ultra-Orthodox community of Kiryat Sefer, of attempted murder and severe injury for stabbing and injuring three people at a gay parade. About nine months ago, Schlissel arrived at the Gay Pride Parade which was held in Jerusalem, carrying a knife. He stabbed three people, who suffered light to moderate injuries. “I came to murder on behalf of God. We can’t have such abomination in the country,” Schlissel said during his police interrogation.

JPost:

According to the charge sheet, the haredi assailant purchased the knife ahead of time in order to carry out the attack at the June 30 parade. "The accused displayed extreme fanatical behavior, and made up his mind not to let the parade end in peace at any cost," the judges wrote in their ruling. "He had no tolerance, not even minimal, toward the people who attended the parade because his worldview rejects any compromise. The accused was fully conscious and ready to pay a heavy personal price for his acts," the judges added.

Now this nutball was an extreme case, but not by far. As a Jew, I wince at this sort of thing. It means Jews looking bad in front of the whole world. And that was something I didn't want to see.

(Full disclosure: I was a practicing Orthodox Jew for a few years. And while I'm no longer frum, I do retain a considerable respect for the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism - as well as a certain sentimental attachment. There are, I can personally assure you, a great many sane and decent orthodox Jews in the world.)

But, you know what? The world does not revolve around what I want to see or don't want to see. Nobody expects the haredi Jews not to object to a gay parade in Jerusalem; that's a given. How they choose to express their disapproval, however, is up to them.

Looking back, I notice that I used the word "provocative". Well, of course we should try to avoid "provoking" people, right? But the idea of a "provocation" has a funny way of shifting the burden of responsibility. One must, after all, agree to be provoked. I'm not going to start talking about those Danish Mohammed cartoons, because I think you get the point.

So, if gay people march in Jerusalem, it will get ugly. Well, life is ugly. We have to deal with it.

I'm going to be following the Jerusalem Pride controversy closely here at Dreams Into Lightning. Stay tuned.

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.

Against the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade

UPDATE: My thinking on this issue has changed since this post was written. I am supporting the event. Please read Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade Reconsidered for my current views.

Original post begins here:

I'll keep this short and to the point. I'm in favor of fairness and equality for lesbian, gay, and transgender people, and I believe queer folk have every right to be visible, both individually and as a community. But I'm against the planned Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. Here's why.

Jerusalem is not only the capital of the State of Israel; it is also the single holiest city in the Jewish world. It is home to thousands of devoutly religious Jews, whose faith forbids homosexuality. I wish there were more understanding in the Orthodox Jewish world toward lesbian, gay, and differently gendered people; and I wish there were more understanding in the queer community of what it is that traditional Jews believe. But that's not the reality in the world right now.

The reality is that a gay pride parade in Jerusalem is a confrontational, provocative gesture. It will do nothing to improve the attitude of straight Israelis toward gay people. It will only provide opportunities for religious fanatics to cause trouble.

The argument has been made by gay advocates that "in a (liberal) city like San Francisco or New York or Tel Aviv we don't need a gay pride parade - it's in places where there's not so much acceptance that it is needed." I agree with this in principle, but I don't agree with the application.

This reasoning presumes that a Gay Pride parade is what is "needed". I don't agree with that premise. Parades may have their place, but what matters is what actually works. And what works is the slow, steady, and unglamorous work of reaching out to the straight world on a daily basis.

I know from personal experience that the documentary "Trembling Before G-d" had a strong impact on the religious Jewish world, both from the effect of the film itself and from the individuals who were inspired to "come out" because of the film. I also know of young people in the queer community (who could by no stretch of the imagination be called "gay conservatives") who feel that gay parades with half-naked men and women walking down the street are both tasteless and counterproductive.

If you drive through Meah She'arim with your radio blasting on Shabbat, or if you walk though Meah She'arim in a bathing suit, are you accomplishing something grand and wonderful? No, you're not.

Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem? To celebrate what? Something that does not yet exist - understanding between the traditionally religious world and the gay world. Such a parade, it seems to me, would only alienate potential allies among the moderates in the straight world, and give the anti-gay fanatics more attention than they deserve.

Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem? No. Wrong place, wrong time, bad idea.

And finally, because I can't resist, one last comment: The gay community wants to "push the limits" in Israel because it knows Israel is a tolerant, liberal, Jewish state. It is, if you'll pardon the expression, the low-hanging fruit.

You want to really accomplish something?

Let me know when you're having that Gay Pride parade in Mecca.

Here's a roundup of news coverage:

Gay.com:

A riot erupted Tuesday night in Jerusalem as hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews marched to protest a planned Pride march later this month.

Members of the Haredi sect created a massive uproar, blocking roads, setting trash cans on fire, and throwing rocks at police officers. Protestors were led by leaders wearing sack cloths, a Biblical sign of bereavement, and carrying placards slamming homosexuality that said "Jerusalem will not be like Sodom and Gomorrah."

Arutz Sheva:

Labor Party presidential candidate Colette Avital has called on Open House officials to find another location for next week’s Gay Pride Parade.

Avital stated that it is obvious that holding the parade in Jerusalem will result in violence and moving it to another city can prevent confrontation. She stated everything possible must be done to avoid violence.

Edge New York:

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim, in Jerusalem are threatening to strike a Gay Pride parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem in two weeks, prompting police to reevaluate the permit issued to parade organizers.

Ynet News reports that most recently, Jerusalem Police Chief Maj. Gen. Ilan Franko met Sunday with Haredi leader Yitzhak Tuvia Weiss.

According to Ynet News, Franko asked to learn about the stance of Haredi rabbis who declared their intent of a ’Million Man Protest’ against the parade.

Arutz Sheva:

The police announced last night (Tuesday) that they were planning to deploy in top-level strength for the event - a declaration perceived by some to be a salvo in the public-opinion war over whether or not to allow the march. One internal police source said the announcement was publicized merely to stir up anti-march sentiment; official police sources denied this.

Hareidi-religious affairs commentator Yossi Elituv said, "The fight against the march has knocked down all barriers in the hareidi and religious camps. The Hassidic sectors - Belz, Gerrer, and others - together with Litaim (non-Hassidic), as well as the Sephardi-hareidim and the religious-Zionist sectors - all are standing together against this parade."

UPDATE: Ah, I see the parade is fostering constructive dialogue already:

There is another act of spitting in G-d's face, a pagan provocation painted up as a "gay pride parade". An event like this has historic significance in New York; there it commemorates an actual occurrence where homosexuals refused to tolerate police harassment. But in Jerusalem, it is merely spitting in G-d's face, purposely pursuing the kind of event that would take place in a pagan temple in His holy city. Briefly, what I am getting at (and this is a very controversial assertion to make) is that it was normal to have sexual orgies of various kinds in pagan temples in Canaan, and it was this behavior that was targeted in the Torah.

...

Forces of Darkness uniting against pride parade - I’d like to say that I’m surprised but I’m not. The ultra orthodox in Israel are parasites and freeloaders in the society there. Their closed minded mentality is exactly in line with the Islamofascists that I rail on about on this blog. The ultra orthodox have no use for modern democratic society and make no contribution to it.

Yeah, this is just what we all need.

For all related posts, please go to this category archive: Jerusalem Pride 2006.