Last Thursday’s pride parade marked the eighth consecutive year that gay activists and supporters celebrated tolerance and freedom of self-expression in Jerusalem. Beginning at Liberty Bell Park, the parade drew thousands of participants for singing, cheering, and the public acknowledgment of gay rights. Compared to Tel Aviv’s pride parades, which are known for their eccentric costumes and loud music, last Thursday’s event was a calm yet crucial effort to bring the issue of gay tolerance to Jerusalem center stage. The parade culminated in Jerusalem’s Independence Park with bands, singing, and the proud waving of the gay flag.
While Israel’s LGBTQ community has long been active in the fight for equal rights and the promotion of social justice, their celebration of LGBTQ activism in the form of an annual Jerusalem parade remains controversial. In 2005, Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupoliansky initially tried to ban the pride parade, but the decision was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court. That same year, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community stabbed three parade participants.
This year has been no exception, as a group of right-wing Israelis organized counter-protests to the Tel Aviv gay pride parade last Monday, arguing that they are entitled to celebrate their Jewish pride if other Israelis can celebrate their gay pride. The planned locations of their counter-rallies were fifteen Arab cities spread throughout the country.
At the forefront of the fight for gay rights in Israel has been Kvisa Shchora (Black Laundry), an LGBTQ activist organization that emphasizes the connection between the oppression of Israel’s gay community and that of the Palestinians living under occupation. The group believes that as long as they are fighting for their equal rights, they must not turn a blind eye to other populations also being oppressed.
Equally active is the Jerusalem Open House, an organization working to promote LGBTQ culture and pluralism, a formidable challenge in Jerusalem given the historic importance of religion and tradition within the city. According to the group’s website, “conformist heterosexism” is an integral part of Israel’s main institutions, all of which must become increasingly tolerant of the LGBTQ community. The organization has also been the focal organizer of the city’s pride parades.
According to Amit Lev, spokesperson for the organization, holding the pride parade in Jerusalem is essential to the fight for equal rights. “Being the capital where the Supreme Court, government and parliament are located, the best place to protest for rights is here. There is a big LGBTQ community either closeted or out, and it’s not Tel Aviv here, we need to represent these people. In Jerusalem we still need the protest to be able to fight for our rights,” he says.
Lev adds that while there have historically been strong tensions between the pride participants and the orthodox community, members from both sides have recently been meeting with each other individually to discuss their positions. “We’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t need to fight with the orthodox community. Two people meeting, speaking and solving everything instead of throwing everything to the newspapers is the way for Jerusalem to stop all battles between rival communities,” he says.
On a national level, some projects have been undertaken to shine a light on gay culture and pride. Yet not all LGBTQ activists wish to be associated with some recent efforts. Stand With Us, a non-profit organization that advocates internationally on Israel’s behalf, recently spearheaded iPride, a project that emphasized Israel’s tolerance of the gay community. According to critics, however, the project was a means of emphasizing the tolerant and pluralistic elements of Israeli society without looking more critically at broader trends of oppression within Israel. For such activists, a parade, despite the presence of anti-gay protesters, is the ideal way of working towards equality and democracy alike.
For Lev, a parade is also the best way to teach all LGBTQ Jerusalemites that being gay is not bad. “We want to teach people that you can go out in daylight and say ‘I’m gay.’ We also want to show that we are people that walk on two feet, breathe, cry, smile, laugh, and love. We are no different from any other person on the planet,” he says.
