Gay Pride in Jerusalem

Val here.


In a previous posting I stated how wonderful was the culture and intellectual respect that characterized Jerusalem. Well....then again....

There is a rift between ultra-orthodox (Haredi) and secular Israelis in Jerusalem and the day that made this so obvious was the day of the Gay Pride parade. Let me describe our adventure.

June 20/07

This evening Arieh and I headed from Mivasseret Zion (our dear friends Bobby and Offra are hosting us there) to Jerusalem to show our support for the Gay Pride demonstration and after to go to theatre. We felt it was important to go to the Gay Pride demonstration because it had been so difficult for it to be arranged in this seemingly modern city. The orthodox are loudly against such a blatant flaunting of G-d's law. Their disapproval must make it so very difficult and lonely for gays in this city who are conscripted into an army system but yet face such discrimination within their community. Happily, the Gay Pride parade near Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv faces few such problems. (The picture below translates as "Enough of Homophobia!")

When Arieh and I arrived on the outskirts of Jerusalem the bus stopped. Everyone got out. The roads in most of downtown Jerusalem were blocked by police or army. There were two buses horizonally blocking one street, barriers on another, a policeman redirecting traffic at another. Of course, the fact that there were no buses and virtually no taxis or cars meant that we had a long walk ahead of us. How wonderful it was to walk the streets of Jerusalem with no cars on the roads! But is is not like Shabbat - the stores are open so I could purchase fresh squeezed orange juice and a Magnum dark choclate ice cream bar from my favorite vendors.
As we walked we passed a huge demonstration by the Haredi community a few hundred metres away. It is because of them that the roads need to be closed. They were blocking Yaffo Street - the main downtown street of Jerusalem. Their bullhorns were intoning prayers of mourning.

We passed several groups of military youths in khaki or blue or grey uniforms, guns slung over their shouldrs ready, if necessary, to help keep order. We passed police and border police barring roads and showing presence. We even passed 25 riot police sitting at a square three blocks from the action, with their acrylic shields at the ready, if called, to control violent behaviour. Inasmuch as the Supreme Court stated that there was no reason the demonstration could not go on, the police had stated that they would be ready to control the situation. Well, they certainly had the numbers of personnel to do it!

Because we were not be able to get to the beginning of the parade on time, we walked to the end of the route to meet our dear friend Racheli Amir-Himel. She stood amongst the crowd, sporting a pink heart balloon, beaming, happy to be showing her solidarity for the marchers. It was a large, happy and friendly demonstration. There was little in-your-face clothing as there would be in Toronto, just a pink lace umbrella and a man with pink hair. The sky was festooned with two garlands of balloons and several demonstrators carried signs. The permitted area was defined by barriers with pleasant army officers letting people in and out when necessary. Two young women protested the march by searing our ears with piercing whistles. The journalists were delighted. At least there would be some minor confrontation to report. One of the marchers faced the woman and her whistle and declared, "we are the same people, I love you, we have been through so much together as Israelis, you are our people, why are you doing this?"
The angry whistles soon stopped - I'm not sure why, perhaps because of his words, perhaps because the police stopped it. We joined the demonstators for a while to show support. The majority of Orthodox protesters, it seemed, blocked traffic and deplored the demonstration from that end of the city. One American Orthodox we passed as we walked expressed her thoughts to her daughter, "Well, they have to have their pride, but it shouldn't happen here. Jerusalem isn't just any other capital city!"

We then went to our play - about the McCarthy era and the naming of names, The Value of Names. Two former friends meet after 30 years; Leo Gershen had betrayed Benny Silverman at the 1950 House UnAmerican Activities committee. The men discussed disloyalty, politics, friendship, and when to forgive.

Was its theme in any way connected to the earlier effort of gays to state who they are in their own country among their own people? I'm not sure. Something to think on.....

Well worth reading the following article describing the parade: www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873728.html Have a look at the responses as well!