Homosexuals provoke Haredim in Jerusalem
Shas MK: Gays are causing Israeli society to self-destruct

By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/949273.html
Wed., January 30, 2008 Shvat 23, 5768

As a Knesset panel deliberated Tuesday on proposals to ban all gay pride parades in Jerusalem, MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) accused the homosexual community of "carrying out the self-destruction of Israeli society and the Jewish people."

Ze'ev also said homosexuals were a plague as "toxic as bird flu."

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee met to debate two bills presented by religious party members which would amend the Jerusalem municipality's Basic Law to prevent gay pride parades from being held within the city limits.

The bills were presented by MK Eli Gabai (National Union - National Religious Party) and MK Yitzhak Vakhnin (Shas).

Both bulls were passed in a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum and have have now been brought for committee deliberations ahead of a first reading.

MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) said in response to Ze'ev's comments that "when I hear concepts like plague and self-destruction, I don't believe they are in the lexicon of expressions. The capital city does not belong only to the ultra-Orthodox."

The chairman of Israel's LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) organization, Michael Hammel, called Ze'ev's words embarrassing and frightening.

"The right to march in the capital city is not a local 'Jerusalemite' matter," he said. "This is a culture war, where politicians are trying to turn Jerusalem into their private property."

Committee members decided that public figures from the religious and homosexual communities in Jerusalem would meet to discuss the gay pride parade on a separate occasion.

MK Yitzhak Levy (NU - NRP) said, "the current situation is that this is a crippled and small protest: once you close a stadium, once you give 100 meters. There should have been a discussion to find new ideas, thus I am calling for a discussion."

Noa Setet, who runs Jerusalem's Open House - the organization which has initiated the parade - seconded Levy's suggestion, but added that the group had scheduled two meetings in the past and Levy's aides had canceled both of them.

Levy denied having canceled the meeting and said he intended two recruit other public figures from the religious community for the future discussion.

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Haredi court places curse on upcoming Jerusalem Gay Pride parade

By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/869201.html
Tue., January 29, 2008 Shvat 22, 5768

The ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court, Haredi Badatz, placed a "curse" Sunday on the participants in the upcoming Gay Pride parade scheduled to take place next week in Jerusalem.

The court also cursed the police officers who will be maintaining order during the parade.

Badatz rabbis plastered warning posters on Jerusalem city walls saying "All those involved in the matter, those of impure souls and those helping them and guarding them, they will feel in their souls a curse, a bad spirit will come over them and haunt them, they will never be cleansed of their sins, from the judgment of God, in their bodies, their souls and their finances."

The ultra-Orthodox leaders plan to stage a "large demonstration which will shake the foundations for the sake of Jerusalem's holiness." The demonstration will likely take place next week, but the warning posters disseminated Sunday afternoon are perceived by the ultra-Orthodox community as a green light to begin protests even sooner.

The rabbis decided to try to bring about the cancellation of the parade through protest after their "diplomatic efforts" to negotiate the cancellation with the Jerusalem police failed.

The leader of the Haredi community, Rabbi Izhak Tuvia Weiss told the police that he was opposed to mass demonstrations, and asked senior police officials to rescind the authorization it had given to the gay and lesbian community to hold its Gay Pride parade in the streets of Jerusalem.

According to some Haredi officials, Rabbi Weiss was disappointed by the meeting he had last week at his home with the chief of the Jerusalem district police force, Major General Aharon Franco, who refused to cancel the parade.

In the wake of his diplomatic failure, Rabbi Weiss agreed to join the more militant members of the community in supporting the mass demonstration against the parade.

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15 arrested protesting against Jerusalem Gay Pride parade

By Yuval Yoaz, Yair Ettinger and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873070.html
Thu., June 21, 2007 Tamuz 5, 5767

Fifteen arrests were made as hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters threw stones, prompting police to use water cannons against them at a demonstration in Jerusalem early Thursday, against the Gay Pride march planned for later on Thursday.

The protest erupted after Israel's High Court cleared the way for the march on Thursday by dismissing an appeal against it by right-wing groups.

The High Court decision was published late Wednesday. The parade is set for a short route past the historic King David hotel to a nearby park, where a gathering is to be held.

Every year, the parade sparks a heated reaction from religious Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews have rioted repeatedly against the march over the past week, burning tires, assaulting policemen and damaging police cars. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 22 policemen were injured in the riots, and 110 people were arrested.

Jerusalem's annual Gay Pride parade has been a relatively modest affair, with none of the flamboyant costumes or nudity common at similar events elsewhere in the world, or even in the nearby Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

At the 2005 march, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three marchers.

The 5,000 marchers expected Thursday will be guarded by 7,000 law enforcement personnel, Rosenfeld said. Because of security concerns, he said, the parade route is only 500 meters (yards) long.

Last year, security concerns led to cancellation of the parade. Instead, gays held a closed festival at a Jerusalem sports stadium.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski implored the court to cancel the parade in a personal message, though this contradicts the municipality's official stance. "The Jerusalem municipality's management regards this parade as a severe provocation, harmful to the delicate balance between the different interests of the city's various population groups," said Lupolianski's note. "The city's management therefore calls upon the court to cancel the parade and prevent violence."

Underscoring his views, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators protesting the parade confronted police Tuesday night in the capital's Mea Shearim neighborhood.

Earlier this month, however, the municipality adopted an official stance that runs contrary to Lupolianski's position: It decided that there was no reason for the city to prevent the parade from taking place.

Jerusalem police work to combat threats of violence
Jerusalem police on Wednesday detained three men in their 20s who were suspected of preparing caltrops and planning to place them on the road during the Gay Pride parade.

Police also found 60 tires hidden in the Gilo neighborhood and suspect that residents were planning on burning them at the parade.

The police have completed security preparations for the event, which will begin at 17:00 on Thursday. The parade will commence at the intersection of Hess and King David streets in Jerusalem and continue towards Liberty Bell Park.

They have also completed security preparations for the Ultra-Orthodox counter-protest which will take place at the same time at the intersection of Jaffa and Sarei Yisrael streets.

A temporary police headquarters will be established near the parade's route.

The High Court refuses right-wing petitions against parade
The High Court on Wednesday cancelled three petitions for the parade's cancelation which were under review since Tuesday. One was filed by the Kochav Echad nonprofit organization, the second by Industry Minister Eli Yishai, who heads the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas, and the third by right-wing activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel. All three petitions demanded that the parade be canceled on the grounds that it would offend the religious community's sensibilities.

Ben-Gvir and Marzel initially requested that their petition be reviewed by a different bench, but their request was rejected. Originally, they claimed, the panel was to have comprised Justices Edmond Levy, Elyakim Rubinstein and Joseph Elon - all of whom are either religious or from a religious family - but an "unknown party" replaced that panel with one comprised of Deputy High Court President Eliezer Rivlin, Justice Ayala Procaccia and High Court President Dorit Beinisch. Before rejecting their request for a different bench, Beinisch told Ben-Gvir and Marzel: "You may consider yourselves honored to have your request reviewed by the current panel."

During the hearing, the justices urged the Jerusalem Open House to give the event a restrained and modest character.

Ben-Gvir argued that "a march through the streets of Jerusalem would almost certainly generate violent rioting. The parade would offend hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox and traditional Jews, as well as Christians and Arabs."

As police were completing their deployment in Jerusalem in an effort to ensure the safety of tomorrow's parade, ultra-Orthodox activists from the fundamentalist Edah Haredit sect continued to stage violent protests in Mea Shearim. In contrast, leaders of the mainstream factions of the ultra-Orthodox community instructed their followers to refrain from participating in protests against the parade, citing "educational damage to the community."

Jerusalem municipality still has not hung up Gay Pride parade flags

The Jerusalem Municipality has yet to put up Gay Pride flags along the route of the planned Gay Pride parade scheduled for Thursday, despite what the Jerusalem Open House called an "explicit promise to do so by [Wednesday] morning at the latest."

City officials said they had intended to hang the flags on Thursday morning, for fear anti-Gay Pride protestors will vandalize them overnight, but following a threat by the Open House that it would file a petition with the High Court of Justice, agreed to hand out the flags Wednesday afternoon.

In a letter sent to Mayor Uri Lupolianski, Open House attorney Gilad Barnea accused the mayor of "trying to disrupt and sabotage the ongoing preparations" for the parade.

The Jerusalem Municipality said in response that it was acting in accordance with High Court decisions

In recent years, the municipality has repeatedly committed itself to hanging the Gay Pride flags - as it does with the flags of other groups that hold events in the capital - only to fail to do so.

Shahar Ilan and Yair Ettinger contributed to this article

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Some 3,500 march in gay pride parade in Jerusalem

By Jonathan Lis and Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873597.html
Mon., June 25, 2007 Tamuz 9, 5767

Roughly 3,500 people marched in the much-contested gay pride parade in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, as some 1,500 ultra-Orthodox men and right-wing activists demonstrated against the event.

Some 500 ultra-Orthodox protesters marched along Jaffa Street in the city, in an attempt to intersect the march and confront the participants. Police blocked the demonstrators, however, arresting 12 of them.

"I am demanding my civil rights, including the right to get married and have children," said marcher Guy Frishman, 27. "I want to have rights like every other person."

One man evaded police to approach marchers, yelling: "Filth! Get out of Jerusalem!" He was escorted away by police.

The march took place under heavy guard, with more than 7,000 police officers protecting the participants. The Magen David Adom emergency medical service was expected to deploy 45 ambulances and 200 medical personnel along the parade route.

The number of participants was far less than the 5,000 people the parade's organizers had believed would take part.

The parade began at the junction of King David Street and Moshe Hess Street and ended in the nearby Liberty Bell Park.

Earlier Thursday, a resident of the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem was arrested on Jaffa Street in possession of a small improvised explosive device.

Elsewhere in the city, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators set fire to garbage cans in Shabbat Square and disrupted traffic in the area. In Beit Shemesh, two ultra-Orthodox demonstrators were arrested by police.

Parade organizers petitioned the High Court of Justice on Thursday to instruct the Jerusalem municipality to station fire engines and sewage draining vehicles at the site of the post-parade rally, in order to bypass a firefighters' strike which threatened to bring about the cancellation of the rally.

Six days ago, some 1,500 firefighters went on strike and refused to secure events or grant licenses to businesses. The firefighters said they would not grant a license to the parade organizers.

Right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir submitted a petition to the High Court earlier Thursday, citing fire code violations in his call for the cancellation of the parade.

Although the strike did not prevent the marchers from holding the parade, it did result in the cancellation of the post-parade rally.

Police limited the route of the parade, authorizing organizers from the Jerusalem Open House gay rights organization to hold a procession along a stretch of only several hundred yards.

Police began scouring the route on Wednesday, to prevent the possibility of extremists planting explosives or other means of injuring the participants.

The officers selected to participate in the operation had prepared for a wide variety of scenarios, ranging from stabbing attempts to terrorist attacks with multiple casualties.

Two years ago, an ultra-Orthodox demonstrator, Yishai Schlissel, leaped into the parade and stabbed three participants who sustained minor to moderate wounds.

On Wednesday night, 23 ultra-Orthodox demonstrators were arrested and two police officers were hurt in violent protests against the march. The protesters hurled rocks and firebombs at the police officers. Two police cars were damaged and one was set on fire. The police used water cannons to disperse the protests.

Jerusalem also saw demonstrations in Givat Shaul, Mea Shearim, Beit Yisrael and Bait Vagan. On some occasions, protesters threw stones at the police and set fire to garbage canisters. Four officers suffered minor injuries, and seven protesters were arrested. Police also found two dummy explosives, one in Beit Hakerem, the other in Ramot. The fake explosives included notes warning that the dummy bombs would be replaced with real ones unless the parade was canceled.

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They're here, they're queer - be proud of Israel

By Bradley Burston
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873728.html
Mon., July 09, 2007 Tamuz 23, 5767

JERUSALEM - I'm proud of the State of Israel. It may have more faults per capita than any nation in the world, faults which are duly broadcast, rerun, critiqued, and condemned as nowhere else. It may have more critics per capita than anywhere else in the world, in particular among its majority population of restive, instinctively kvetching, eternally disappointed Jews.

I know every criticism by heart. I'll see your every damning denunciation, and raise you 10. But I am proud of this country, and the gay pride parade in Jerusalem goes a long way toward explaining why.

I am proud of a country which - under the burden of a 24/7 threat of Islamic Jihad terrorism, under a daily Hamas barrage of Qassam missiles on a small town in the Negev, under an explicit Iranian threat of erasure in the future and client militia brushfire wars in the near present - deploys 8,000 police, nearly half of its entire active-duty force, to protect a parade in Jerusalem by a minority group that is routinely denigrated by many members of two of the holy city's largest and most vocal communities: the ultra-Orthodox and the Palestinians.

I am proud of the gay community, which made strenuous efforts to assure that the parade would be held in areas far from the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and other areas where the march would serve to offend residents.

I am proud of the police for standing up to yeshiva students who, screaming "Nazis! Nazis! Nazis!" at the officers, pelted them with rocks, bottles, angle iron and Molotov cocktails, all the while breaking windows, smashing streetlights, and setting fire to tires and garbage dumpsters.

I am proud of ultra-Orthodox rabbis and yeshiva masters, who, though appalled by the parade and what they see as the abomination of homosexuality, publicly and unequivocally forbade their students from taking part in violent demonstrations.

I am proud of a country that scorns the slimy Meir Kahane disciple Itamar Ben-Gvir when he screams at gay celebrants in a Tel Aviv parade "the Nazis should have finished you off."

I am proud of the policeman on King David Street who, when asked by a passing pre-schooler about the flag with the rainbow colors, replied, "There are boys who love boys, and girls who love girls."

I am proud of a country in which the army's influential radio station airs the views of the daughter of the prime minister when she states that the right of gays and lesbians to march in their capital city is as inherent as their right to vote.

Just as I am proud of Israel's last Eurovision song contest winner, an acclaimed diva who began life as a man, who told a television interviewer why she believed that in the interest of respect for the holy city, the parade should not be held there.

And I am proud, as well, of the fact that Israel Television gave air time to a rabbi to explain his strong opposition to the march, and to the woman anchor who, asked by the rabbi what she would do if her son told her she was gay, said that she would hold him and be grateful for his openness.

There are many who argue that a Jewish country cannot countenance a public celebration of homosexuality. It is time for them to take the advice of leading rabbis, who placed this announcement in the Lithuanian Haredi newspaper, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post:

"Demonstrating should be done by each person in his place [by feeling outrage in the soul, by praying and beseeching (God) against the loathsome blasphemy]."

All of us who live here have our personal list of obscenities, perversions and abominations, as committed by our fellow Jewish residents of Israel. We may find their actions politically abhorrent, culturally unbearable, spiritually bankrupt, personally offensive.

They are a big part of the price of living in this country, riven along fault lines dividing and enraging left and right, secular and religious, Mizrachi and Ashkenazi, sabra and immigrant.

It may be the built-in flaw of a Jewish homeland, this infighting among the Jews it has brought home.

But as the gay pride parade proves, the most profound strength of a Jewish country are those Jews who strive to learn to live with the Jews with whom they so profoundly differ.

We're here. By definition, we are all of us, each in our own ways, queer. We should, all of us for our own reasons, be proud.

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Labels: Abomination, Anti-Torah, Gay pride parade, Gays, Homosexuality, Israeli society, Jerusalem

- posted by Izak @ 8:32 PM