Celebrating Israel’s diversity

June 13, 2010 - 11:56 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

Tel Aviv turned into a multi-colored, multi-cultural sea of fun on Friday… wait, isn’t that Tel Aviv every day?

What made this day a little more colorful was the 13th annual Gay Pride parade, as thousands of revelrers celebrated the sexual freedom Israel offers by marching, dancing and waving rainbow flags from Meir Park to Gordon Beach, where a massive outdoor party awaited them.

Since the Madrid Gay Pride Parade has banned Israeli groups (and famed singer Dana International) from attending, due to Israel’s raid on the Gaza flotilla, there was even more reason to step up the celebrations in Tel Aviv this year.

For the first time, two separate parades marched at the same time, with an alternative ‘radical’ march running parallel to the traditional community one, organized by the ‘Marching toward Social Change’ coalition.

According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, the trauma of last year’s fatal attack on a counseling center for gay teens in Tel Aviv was not forgotten during the festivities. A moment of silence was held at Meir Park for the victims of a shooting last August at the Bar Noar that left two dead and 15 wounded. Parade organizers also set up a stand where people could make donations to help the survivors.

Kadima leader Tzipi Livni spoke at the event, urging Israelis not to give in to hatred and xenophobia.

“As a country which is proud of its values, justice and unique society, Israel must denounce hatred,” she said.

Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich also spoke, saying there was still much to be done in the battle against ignorance and discrimination, and for equal rights for the gay community.

“The time has come for the friends of the community to come out of the closet to ensure that this fight, a political one, will succeed,” she said, according to Ha’aretz, adding that there were many public figures and politicians still afraid to come out of the closet.

Friday could have been their opportunity, as they would have blended into the wild crowd without being noticed.

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Pride and parking in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

June 14, 2009 - 7:55 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Religion 

In Tel Aviv, there were parades and celebrations. In Jerusalem, there was a protest demonstration. Just another typical weekend in Israel.

Meretz MK Nitsan Horowitz must have been the busiest guy in the country, as he managed to participate in both events – the annual Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv on Friday, which this year, included the ‘weddings’ of five gay couples – and a Saturday protest in the capital by secular activists angered that the opening of a parking lot on Shabbat for Old City visitors was suspended due to riots the week before by haredi protestors.

Got that straight… um, clear?

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According to supporters between 20,000 and 30,000 participants took place in the Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade, culminating in the joint wedding ceremony on the beach (which can be viewed on the accompanying video).

Ha’aretz wrote:

The ceremony, held at sundown after a boisterous disco on the sand, began with a serenade by gay pop star Ivri Lider as the three female and two male same-sex couples walked up to the Chuppah, the Jewish wedding altar.

The ceremony was performed according to Jewish marriage rites, with each couple exchanging rings and Hebrew vows before breaking the traditional glass as the crowd erupted in applause.

Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz, the Knesset’s first openly gay parliamentarian, attended the wedding, along with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.

“I hope that from this day weddings like this can happen in every place in Israel and not just in Tel Aviv,” Horowitz told Haaretz. “Weddings for everyone – man and woman, man and man, and woman and woman, and this will be the end of the monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox over our lives in Israel.”

The parade was sponsored by Tel Aviv municipality as part of the city’s centennial celebrations. It was a far cry from the scene the next day in Jerusalem when several hundred people gathered in the Kikar Safra to protest what they called Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s “capitulation” to the city’s haredi community over the Shabbat operation of a municipal parking lot.

The mayor had opened the garage last weekend, with the approval of his haredi coalition partners. But the move prompted a riot by thousands of haredim, and more rioting had been threatened for Saturday if the lot were opened again.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Barkat, on Friday, acceded to a request from the city’s police chief to close the municipal garage for two successive Saturdays. The plan is to find an alternative site to during that time to accommodate parking for visitors to the nearby Old City.

“This is just a warm-up demonstration,” Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Pepe Allalo of Meretz told the crowd, estimated by the organizers at 800, who sang and chatted in the afternoon sunshine. “But if [Barkat] doesn’t reopen the garage in two weeks, we’ll fill the whole square.”

Some haredim, said Allalo, “want to turn Jerusalem into another Bnei Brak… We won’t let that happen.”

Barkat’s spokesman Evyatar Elad said that the parking lot would be reopened in two weeks if no solution to the lack of weekend parking near the Old City could be found by then.

MK Horowitz, fresh from the Tel Aviv celebration the day before, told the crowd that the dispute over the garage was “part of the wider struggle over the very nature of the State of Israel.

“If there is no freedom for secular Jerusalemites, in time there will no freedom for the secular residents of Tel Aviv or anywhere else,” he declared.

Later this month, all of the issues will gloriously converge like a master plan from above. Jerusalem is holding its own annual gay pride parade on June 25th. In the past, despite a much lower profile than Tel Aviv’s parade, there have several confrontations with haredim in Jerusalem, including violence and injuries resulting.

Which demonstration will the haredim choose to attend? The ‘close the parking lot’ or the ‘stop the gay pride parade’ protests? And just where will all the gay pride parade attendees park?

Stay tuned…

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Israeli hasbara, with a tinge of pink

May 28, 2009 - 3:23 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture 

tel-aviv-gayPro-Israel groups are getting quite edgy these days in their attempts to show a side of Israel that isn’t generally covered in the world’s media.

Latest example is the organization Stand With Us - which usually works with students galvanizing support for Israel and generally focusing on political issues. Howewer, they’ve realized that not everything is black and white – sometimes it’s also purple.

They’re inviting journalists to visit Israel for the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade, in a package called ‘iPride Tel Aviv 2009 - Israel’s culture in a GLBT scope.’ In its 11th year, the parade is part of the Tel Aviv 100th anniversary celebrations.

In addition to representing their own countries in the parade on June 12th, the five-day trip includes meetings with the most influential opinion shapers in the Israeli GLBT community, including representatives of the army and Israeli gay cultural icons.

Among the prominent gay Israelis on the agenda are Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz and Gal Uchovsky, movie producer (along with his partner Eytan Fox of ‘The Bubble’), and Israeli “American Idol” TV show judge.

The group will also meet with an army rep to talk about gays in the IDF, and spend a day in Jerusalmem, where they’ll try to answer the question, ‘Should the Holy City be Proud?’

I know of at least one gay journalist from the US who has never been to Israel who is hoping to be picked by Stand With Us for one of the places on the trip. For him, it will surely provide an inside look into an Israel that is a far cry from the headlines.

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Gearing up for Tel Aviv’s 100th

March 4, 2009 - 10:28 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel 

A poster in competition for the Tel Aviv Centennial.

A poster in competition for the Tel Aviv Centennial.

Tel Aviv is one of those enigmatic cities. Alot of it is really ugly, but there’s something about it that makes it one of the most beautiful and alive cities in the world. Not to mention, it’s just one of the coolest places ever, where you can people watch for hours, see bike riders, skaters, punks, rastas, old-time Yekkies, bathing beauties, and just an amalgam of everything Israeli.

Arriving there from Jerusalem is always like entering a different country, that’s moving a noticeably more rapid pace. Yup, Tel Aviv has alot to be proud of, and starting next month, the city is launching its Centennial celebrations with six months of exhibits, shows, programs, and educational and cultural offerings.

Just a few highlights from a press briefing that Mayor Ron Huldai and Centennial director general Hila Oren gave this week

* A NIS 500,000 statue of Tel Aviv’s first mayor Meir Dizengoff, designed by artist David Zondolovitz will be unveiled in front of the mayor’s home on Rothschild Boulevard to coincide with a conference on April 23rd at the Cameri Theater on the descendants of the city’s founding fathers. (By the way, a recent survey of high school students showed that most thought famed Dizengoff Street was named after the Dizengoff Center shopping mall – so there’s something to be said for those educational programs they’re planning).

* The city has embarked on 15 major renovation projects to mark the Centennial, including the restoration of the Jaffa Port, the Manshia train station at the edge of Jaffa, the restoration of the Trumpeldor Street cemetery where many of the city’s founders are buried, and new wings for the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, the Museum of Art and Habimah Theater.

* A gala opening celebration at Kikar Rabin on April 4th

* The Tel Aviv Marathon on April 24th

* Little Tel Aviv’s White Nights nostalgia festival on May 27th

* The Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade on June 12th

* The Blue-Mediterranean Festival in Jaffa on June 16th

* A gala performance of Verdi’s Requiem by La Scala at Ganei Yehoshua on July 16th

Huldai spoke about the actual 100th birthday of the city – marked as April 11, 1909 when several dozen families gathered on the sand dunes outside Jaffa to choose plots for land for a new neighborhood called Ahuzat Bayit, later renamed Tel Aviv. Since they couldn’t decide who would get which plot, they held a lottery by gathering 60 gray and 60 white seashells. Akiva Arieh Weiss, chairman of the lottery committee, wrote the names of the participants on the white shells and the plot numbers on the gray shells, and paired the names with the plots.

“Every day it’s a miracle. When I think about 100 years ago and those families standing on the sand dunes and picking up shells for the lottery, and then seeing this metropolis today, it’s just a miracle,” said Huldai.

So, if you’re planning a trip in the next few months, think about Tel Aviv and join in celebrating the miracle.

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