Mideast Piece

Thursday’s Jerusalem Parade for Pride and Tolerance was small and mild by any standards; however, for this veteran of Pride events in New York, Montreal and elsewhere, Thursday was something far more meaningful and important than these show-stoppers.

Jerusalem is supposed to stand for the best values of the world’s oldest religions. GLBT individuals demanding rights and visibility one afternoon a year might offend the “religious” sensibilities of many people living here, but that is not the point. Women demanding the vote offended sensibilities at one point, and so did blacks living outside the system of slavery.

Jerusalem’s GLBT community must keep marching until there is no need to march anymore. It must work harder to reframe this event as an equality rally, because there are powerful (read: ultra-Orthodox) forces attempting to portray it as some kind of recruiting event or sex parade.

It took the ancient Hebrews 40 years of wandering and pain in the desert to go from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Considering the first shots in the modern struggle for GLBT rights were fired just in the past few decades, we can expect a similar journey. It’s necessary and dangerous, but - for many of us - sitting on the sidelines is out of the question.

Here are some of my photos from Thursday’s event; again, they’re a lot less racy than the Tel Aviv photos earlier in June, but - at least to me - a lot more special.

Below is Adam Russo, who was stabbed by a knife-wielding “yeshiva” student during Jerusalem’s Pride event two years ago.

7000 police officers to secure gay parade

Fires break out around Jerusalem
Gay pride protestors suspected of starting fires in capital, Beit Shemesh region

Shas MK proposes ‘rehab centers’ for gays

Let’s look at two developments related to the Pride rally scheduled in Jerusalem today.

This first development is that - much to my surprise - the city’s leading rabbis told their people to stop setting things on fire and throwing stones at police officers to prevent the event from taking place. This was a rare show of common sense and civic duty from the leaders of a population that - to put it diplomatically - does little for the city’s social fabric outside its own gates and spreads hate in many directions. Read more about this development here.

Unfortunately, a gay city councilor has received numerous death threats this week for publicly supporting the rally. Sa’ar Netanel is being given police protection following the threats and the posting of his telephone number on fliers taped to polls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. It also appears in Web forums and message boards operated by sect members. Read more here.

One step forward, and another back.

From Ynet:

Some 400 Tel Aviv policemen train Wednesday for Thursday’s pride parade in Jerusalem, prepare for violence by protestors. Meanwhile, haredim continue to demonstrate against parade across country

Some 400 policemen of the Tel Aviv District police held drills Wednesday ahead of the gay pride parade, scheduled to take place in Jerusalem Thursday. The officers will join the Jerusalem police in securing the parade.

The police are taking very seriously the possibility that disturbances at the event will result in violence, and officers practiced the
use of clubs and shields in case this happens.

Meanwhile, despite an official notice published by the rabbis of the United Torah Judaism Tuesday calling on haredim not to demonstrate against the parade, violent protests ensued across Israel. Police arrested 12 haredim in Bnei Brak, including eight teens, for hurling stones at cars during the night. Two of them were later released.

Disturbances also took place at strictly-Orthodox neighborhoods in the capital, including Givat Shaul, Meah Shearim, Beit Yisrael and Bait Vagan. The Jerusalem police arrested seven people on suspicion of throwing stones and clashing with officers. Four policemen were injured in the incidents; three of them were evacuated to the hospital.

In yet another attempt to force a Jerusalem Pride event to be halted, the city’s ultra-Orthodox have taken to the street. Last November this included extensive rioting and burning of municipal property, not to mention assaults on police and buses. Yes, these are the holy people, the ones who study the Bible all day.

Last night’s protests (above) were apparently mild, but are expected to heat up as this Thursday’s event draws closer. To me it’s all so sad and pathetic, because Jerusalem Pride is nothing like the flesh-show of other cities. Organizers have 100% respect for the conservative nature of the city, and the event - both visually and content-wise - could not be more focused on human rights, co-existence and equality.

Thanks for understanding, black hats!

Here’s the buzz on the Tel Aviv International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival or TLVFEST opening on June 8.

Film director, producer, and manager of the Berlin Porn Festival, Jurgen Bruning, is scheduled to arrive in Israel as a guest of the Tel Aviv International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (TLVFEST) which will open June 18.

For the Tel Aviv festival, Bruning edited a special collection of films from the Berlin Festival which explore, he said, the fine lines differentiating porn, art and politics.

The festival program includes works from around the world and deal with a variety of subjects: the world of cyber-sex, same-sex relationships, a tribute to Divine and sado-drag.

“Some of the films contain explicit sex scenes and disturbing violence,” says Yair Hochner ,the Tel Aviv’s Festival’s director of programming.

“The festival particularly aspires to present Israeli audiences with important and world-renowned Queer works that are still unfamiliar to the local scene, to examine boundaries between art and pornography, to investigate social issues and to shed light on those who live their lives on the margins.”

You might know that GLBT youth are at far higher risk for suicide than their “straight” peers. I just read a story about a 15-year old Welsh boy who placed himself on train tracks last week to kill himself.

According to Jonathan Reynold’s family, the boy killed himself due to homophobic tauntings at school. In a final text message, the boy wrote, “Tell everyone that this is for anybody who [ever] said anything bad about me, see I do have feelings too. Blame the people who were horrible and injust [to] me. This is because of them, I am human just like them.”

Read more here.

Yesterday’s Tel Aviv Pride was not at large as past years when some 200,000 would attend (quite large when one considers there are only 7 million Israelis!). Corporate sponsors - the mainstay of any Pride event - stayed away in droves because of the ultra-Orthodox community’s threat to boycott them if they supported the event.

When all was said and done, reports put the number of participants at 15,000, with 500 police officers and volunteers posted for protection. Several dozen right-wing activists were on hand to tell participants they are bringing disaster on Israel, blah blah blah.

The day began with a rally near the spot where Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was murdered in 1995. I found this ironic because the same forces responsible for the incitement leading to his murder (ultra-Orthodox, anti-democratic extremists) also advocate for the murder of gays (i.e., reward posters in Jerusalem’s religious neighborhoods).

The parade itself was rather tame, and ended at the beach for a slightly less tame party. “I am wearing a girdle, and I haven’t been able to breathe for an hour and I’m almost suffocating,” said one participant who came from Paris to show off his Marie Antoinette costume.

Here are some photos of yesterday’s event, the largest Pride in the Middle East (kind of goes without saying, no?):

The Economist reported this week that it is becoming more difficult for gay Palestinians to find refuge in Israel and abroad. According to the report, because Israel is filling in the remaining open spaces in its security barrier/fence/wall it recently took a Palestinian drag performer seven hours to complete what should normally be a one hour journey from Ramallah to Tel Aviv.

The article relates that

One time, high heels and a wig saved Imad from prison. The 22-year-old from the West Bank capital, Ramallah, had been caught in Jerusalem without a permit. On the way to the jail, the police asked him and his friend why they had sneaked into town. As his friend shrivelled up with shame, Imad (not his real name) proudly told them he had come to perform at the Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. He opened his bag and flourished his outfit with a bristle of sequins. The police, realising that they had caught a couple of drag queens instead of a couple of terrorists, let them go with a warning never to return. “And two days later,” recounts Imad with a gleam in his eye, “I was back, even in the same café where they arrested me.”

As we’ve seen around the world with the struggle for GLBT rights, some things are a case of two steps forward and one step back. Events in Israel’s parliament this week illustrate this notion. Though Israel is by far the best country in the region for GLBT rights and community-building, there are strong anti-democratic and anti-progressive forces that continue to hinder progress.

I urge you to read this op-ed by the Jerusalem Open House’s executive director, Noa Sattath, on the danger to democracy when one group attempts to silence another.

“…any person unwilling to become the silenced party tomorrow must join today the struggle for the survival of Israeli democracy against those who threaten it,” Sattath writes. “This struggle is not ours alone; this is the struggle of any supporter of freedom and democracy whoever he or she may be.”