Nostalgia Sunday – 1 Year Later: GLBT Youth Center
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion
Sometimes its important to look back at the not-so-distant past and take a measure of how far we’ve progressed — or not.
Despite yesterday’s infernal heat, thousands of people, gay and straight, gathered in Tel Aviv to mark the one-year memorial anniversary of the GLBT Drop-in Center killings that took two young lives, injured 13 physically and damaged countless others psychologically.
Last year, photographer Gil Lavi documented the spontaneous outpouring of emotion and mourning that followed the horrifying event. The shooter has still not been found.
At the time, Lavi wrote: “This occurred inside a community center for gay and lesbian youth who are afraid to come out to the wider community. A man with a loaded gun came in at around 11pm and opened fire. The statements coming from the police say that he wore a mask. You could say that all those youths who depended on this center for their free expression are forced to wear a mask on a daily basis. Their mask doesn’t cover their face, rather their soul.”
This year, there are signs of increasing tolerance on the horizon and — at least as far as the secular community is concerned — they come from an unexpected source. Orthodox rabbis and educators from Israel and abroad have created and signed a statement of principles “on the place of our brothers and sisters in our community who have a homosexual orientation”. “We hope and pray that by sharing these thoughts we will help the Orthodox community to fully live out its commitment to the principles and values of Torah and Halakha as practiced and cherished by the children of Abraham, who our sages teach us are recognized by the qualities of being rahamanim (merciful), bayshanim (modest), and gomelei hasadim (engaging in acts of loving-kindness).”
Let us hope that these prayers provide much-needed direction to the children of Abraham and come true, speedily and in our days.
Patriotic Pride
Some 3,000 people marched from Jerusalem’s Independence Park to the Knesset in yesterday’s annual Gay Pride parade. My daughter Merav and I were there to support the community.
It’s been a long time since I was at a gay parade – I used to regularly join the massive San Francisco event in the 1970s when I was growing up. That parade attracted hundreds of thousands of merry-makers. I wrote about it here.
The march in Jerusalem is much smaller, of course, it also has an added religious dimension. There were as many police than participants on hand Thursday; they were on guard against attacks like the one three years ago by an ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed three people.
This year, the protests included right wing groups holding cardboard cut-outs of donkeys, calling the event a parade of “bestiality.” The protesters had originally asked for a permit to bring live donkeys, which the police rejected.
That same religious element cuts the other way too, though – towards tolerance – and it’s part of what makes the parade in Jerusalem so unique. There were many men sporting kippot (yarmulkes) on their heads as well as women dressed in uber-modest Orthodox garb (long sleeves & skirts, tightly covered hair).
Other participants wore t-shirts reading “I’m proud to be religious” or carried signs indicating which religious high schools they attended including Jerusalem’s prestigious Orthodox Horev and Pelech schools.
The message was clear: don’t exclude us from any community, including the religious. It’s in keeping with a statement released this week by 150 Orthodox rabbis and educators including Rabbi Benny Lau and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin stating that “Jews with homosexual orientations or same sex-attractions should be welcomed as full members of the synagogue and school community
The parade was accompanied by a marching band with drum and bagpipe as it wound its way toward the Wohl Rose Garden overlooking the Knesset where a large stage was set-up for speeches and song.
But the mood turned somber as speakers recalled August 1, 2009, the day a shooter entered the Tel Aviv Bar Noar gay and lesbian youth center and killed two members, wounding 15 others. This year’s parade in Jerusalem was delayed several months to coincide with the anniversary of the Tel Aviv tragedy for which the assailant has yet to be found.
As Merav and I prepared to leave, we passed several booths selling souvenirs. Merav bought a multi-colored bracelet to show her support. But she also had her eye on a dog tag necklace with an Israeli flag, which I gladly purchased for her. After all, isn’t that what patriotism is all about: supporting equality for all Israelis no matter which shade paints their rainbow.
A doctor, a lawyer and an NBA star
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Pop Culture, Religion, Sports
Let’s hope he doesn’t take in a movie during his visit to Israel and sit in front of you. Otherwise, there’s no downside to the disclosure that NBA superstar Amar’e Stoudemire is here and basking in his Jewishness.
The former NBA Rookie of the Year and current New York Knick recently disclosed that his mother was Jewish, and has publicly embraced his roots – peppering his Twitter updates with Hebrew and now visiting the country with his girlfriend Alexis.
“The Holy Land has always been high on my list of places to visit, and when this opportunity arose, I wasn’t going to push it off any longer,” Stoudemire told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, adding that he was “so excited to be here, see all the important historical sites, learn Hebrew and to get a better understanding of my heritage.”
Stoudemire, who spent the first eight years of his career with the Phoenix Suns, joins Joining New Jersey Nets’ point guard Jordan Farmar and Sacramento Kings’ forward Omri Casspi, Israel’s favorite son, as the NBA’s only Jewish players.
“The holy land. Learn about it,” he wrote on his Twitter feed, adding, “ze ha’halom sheli” – Hebrew for “this is my dream.”
“I don’t really consider myself to be a religious person, but rather a deeply spiritual individual,” Stoudemire told the Post. “I have been aware since my youth that I am a Hebrew through my mother, and that is something that has played a subtle but important role in my development.”
“I have never hid my spiritual roots,” he said. “They just weren’t something that came under the spotlight. I am proud to be a Hebrew and embrace my Jewish background.”
Stoudemire also said that he was hoping to learn some Hebrew on his visit here. Perhaps it could even help his upcoming NBA season. He could pick up some of the local colorful curse words and throw his opponents off guard in the middle of a game, as he swoops past them toward the basket. Score one for the Jewish guy!
Tisha B’av with helicopters
The book of Eicha is traditionally read on Tisha B'av
Every year on Tisha B’av, there are pundits who write in the local newspapers that we should stop fasting and start celebrating.
Tisha B’av – the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av (which always falls somewhere in super-heated July or August) – commemorates various tragedies which have befallen the Jewish people, first and foremost the destructions of the first and second temples in Jerusalem and their subsequent exiles.
In order to properly mourn, traditional Jews refrain from eating from sundown to sundown on Tisha B’av.
But why, if the Jewish people have returned from exile to re-establish a sovereign Jewish state and even have control over Jerusalem itself, should we continue to fast? Anshel Pfeffer, writing in Haaretz, is the latest in an annual stream of columnists calling for an end to all the pseudo-sackcloth and ashes.
“Tisha B’Av was never supposed to be an eternal day of mourning,” Pfeffer writes. “The prophet Zechariah, who according to tradition lived 2,500 years ago, at the time of the first return to Zion and the building of the Second Temple, quoted the Lord of Hosts promising that ‘the fasts of the fourth month, and of the fifth, seventh and tenth months will become festivals of joy and happiness for the House of Judah.’”
Not only is the exile over, but those Jews who remain living outside of Israel are not being prevented from emigrating but rather are doing so out of choice, Pfeffer says. “Praying to God that all these millions of Jews will up themselves and make aliyah is hypocritical,” he adds.
Now, there are those who say we must continue to mourn until a third temple is built. Pfeffer has an answer for that as well. When Israel captured the Old City in 1967, it was Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who assured Muslim Wakf officials they would have full control of the Temple Mount area. “The only reason that the third temple has not been built is that a majority of Israelis simply are not interested,” Pfeffer writes.
When I presented Pfeffer’s point to some friends, though, I was quickly reminded that the temples were destroyed by what the rabbis deemed “baseless hatred.” And we are far from overcoming such feelings today. Indeed, a Ynet-Gesher poll asked Israelis “What, in your opinion, is the worst source of tension in Israeli society?” 42 percent indicated religious vs. secular issues (there’s lots more in the poll – worth checking out).
So, said my friends, we continue to mourn – not for the destruction of the temples but for the continued brokenness of our fragile society.
That’s also what our rabbi said in a preface to reading the book of Eicha (Lamentations) in the garden of the Jerusalem Nature Museum earlier this evening. But as we sat outside, listening to the mournful tunes being chanted under the stars, the silence was repeatedly broken by the sound of a helicopter circling directly above us. I timed it – it came around regularly every 5-6 minutes. The copter must have made at least 10 very noisy flyovers during the reading.
None of us knew what the helicopter was doing. Was it police or army? Had their been a tip-off that a terror attack was immiment? Or was this area – close to the Knesset – always patrolled and we just normally never stop to listen?
In any of those cases, the symbolism seemed clear: exile must truly be over – we have our own security forces with our own helicopters that can protect the Jewish people from future disasters.
Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe the reason we need the helicopters is that we still have enemies who are bent on our destruction. Only once we have true peace in the region can we start eating again on Tisha B’av.
Food for thought…well at least for after the fast.
Nostalgia Sunday – Jerusalem the Center
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion, Travel
Jerusalem is central to Judaism. And no day is that fact made more evident than Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, the day on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed and the Jews exiled. It is a day of fasting and mourning, but also of study, prayer and hope that Jerusalem will one day be truly rebuilt and the Jews returned to their ancient homeland.
To mark the upcoming holy day, here are some pictures of Jerusalem, ancient and modern, courtesy of the excellent Jerusalem Shots website.
© trionfo
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Misha Burlatsky
© G. Eric and Edith Matson
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Олег Велобегов
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