Israeli LGBT activists tour U.S.
Hoping to find an increased sense of strength in the wake of a deadly shooting spree at the LGBT Center in Tel Aviv, a delegation from the Israeli Gay Youth Organization will travel to California and New York this month to meet with local activists to discuss the best ways to set up gay-straight youth alliances in the Jewish State.
"We want to learn how people in the states deal with homophobia," Noa Raz, coordinator of IGY Tel Aviv told EDGE.
A lone gunman shot and killed Nir Katz, 26, and Liz Trobishi, 16, and wounded 15 others inside the center’s basement meeting room on Aug. 1. This attack sent shock waves around the world and drew instant and widespread support for Israeli LGBTs.
"The attacks were disturbing, not just because of the tragic deaths, but because the sense of a safe place, of home, was lost," Raz said. "How do you deal with this kind of hate?"
Raz said he and Tel Aviv City Councilmember Etai Pinkas and Avner Dafni, the executive director of IGY, will meet with Jewish, gay and gay Jewish leaders during their tour.
"One of the things we realized after the attack was that we need to educate against homophobia at younger ages," Raz said. "The gay-straight network in California is fantastic and we want to learn about it."
He continued.
"I’m 30 and I came out 13 years ago when I was 17," Raz said. "I didn’t know any other gay person. I didn’t even know what to call it. Now the kids have so many positive role models: singers and writers and celebrities who are openly out. I didn’t have youth groups when I was a child. I wish I had."
Asked how rampant homophobia is in Israel, Raz said, "It depends on how you define homophobia. The government is very tolerant. We can adopt, we can have domestic partnerships, we can have health care, and the army is tolerant. We’ve had major, major change.The problem is within society, within schools."
Raz added studies after the attack showed a significant number of LGBT youth in the country experienced verbal or physical homophobic attacks. Teachers did not intervene in 80 percent of these cases.
"It means you couldn’t come to school and say ’Go away, you fucking Jew,’ but if you said ’Go away you little faggot’ it would be okay," he said. "We don’t have the Ku Klux Klan, but there are some homophobic groups operating here. There are some homophobic public figures who speak out against gay. So there’s work to be done here."
The IGY has ramped up its efforts to tackle this problem in the wake of the Aug. 1 attack.
"The government is more and more supportive," Raz said. We got 70,000 people in the rally in Rabin Square. It was so full we could hardly believe it. The prime minister, who is right wing, said it was amazing and came to speak."
The trip to New York and California will include three events open to the public. The delegates will be at the LGBT Community Center in San Francisco at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 2. They will attend a Shabats service at Beit Chaim Chadashim in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 7 at 8 p.m., and at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York on Friday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m.
