| Aic in Spanish | Tue, September 07th |
| Aic in Spanish | Tue, September 07th |
On Thursday 29 July 29, the 8th annual Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade will wind its way across the city. This year’s march marks the one-year anniversary of the tragic shooting at Bar Noar, a Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Youth Center, which resulted in the deaths of two teenagers and the wounding of 11. Jerusalem Pride March participants will be marching to the Knesset to commemorate the lives lost and to demand the rights that the victims deserved – the equal rights that all people deserve.
“After the attack at the Bar Noar center in Tel Aviv, we put a lot of thought into how we could publicly commemorate the tragedy. In the end, we decided not to stage the usual Jerusalem Pride Parade, but rather to transform it,” Yonatan Gher, director general of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance (JOH ), said in an interview with Haaretz.
JOH is the only organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered (LGBT) people and their allies in Jerusalem. As a grassroots, activist center, they provide direct services for the LGBT community in the city while working to secure LGBT rights in Israeli society at large.
“This week's event is a pride parade, but it is much more than that. The event will attract the LGBT community from all over the country, and we will commemorate the first anniversary of this murder,” Gher said.
Jerusalem’s annual Pride March draws a large crowd and often much controversy. Many of the religious leaders of Jerusalem's Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities have in the past petitioned the municipal government to cancel the permit of the paraders. During the fourth annual Pride March, on 30 June 2005, a Haredi Jewish man attacked three participants with a kitchen knife.
Last year’s participants discussed the difference between the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Pride Parades. “In Tel Aviv, the Gay Pride parade is more of a party. But in Jerusalem, it’s much more political, like a protest,” one marcher comment, with others agreed.
Na’ama, a member of Bat-Kol, an organization for Orthodox Jewish lesbians, agreed. “It’s not like a protest-it is a protest. I don’t want to take it for granted that I can walk here. But we also have to fight for other rights, like the right to marry. And we still have a struggle with the rest of the Orthodox community to get them to accept us,” she told the Reuters news agency.
“Every year there is fear, though in recent years the fear has somewhat abated. We were able to create a dialogue in Jerusalem that significantly reduced the opposition we had witnessed during the parade's first years,” Yonatan Gher said.
According to Pride March 2010’s website, participants will be marching in struggle of five basic rights, including access to health services, right to family, freedom from hate and freedom of identity.
Yonatan Gher hopes to establish a pride lobby in the Knesset this year. The Jerusalem Open House and the march’s organizers will be sending a statement to all 120 Knesset members for their work plan.
“We are Jerusalemites and this is our city, and we are marching in it. Is it still frightening to walk down the street, hand in hand, with the person you love? The answer is yes, but we march so that there will be nothing to fear in the future,” Gher told Haaretz.
Jerusalem Pride March 2010
March Schedule – Thursday July 29th, 2010
3:30 PM – Volunteer ushers gather at Gan Ha'atzmaut (Indpendence Park)
4:30-5:40 PM – Crowd gathers at Gan Ha'atmaut
5:45 PM – March begins to Gan Havradim (Rose Garden) in front of the Knesset
7:00 PM - Rally begins at Gan Havradim
9:15 PM- March Ends
General information on the Jerusalem Pride March 2010: http://joh.org.il.moonsitesoftware.co.il/index.php/jerusalem-pride-march-2010/
AIC video on the 2008 Jerusalem Pride March here.
