Skip To Content
logo/forward/small
Get our NewslettersShop our Store
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Support Our WorkSupport Us
Fast Forward

This Is What Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade Looks Like

Israelis carry a gay pride rainbow flag with the Star of David during the annual Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade on July 21, 2016. Image by AFP/Getty Images

Josefin Dolsten

By Josefin Dolsten August 3, 2017

(JTA) — The turnout for Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade on Thursday was more than three times the expected number, with at least 14,000 people marching.

Some estimates said that up to 22,000 people attended the 16th annual march. Officials had expected some 4,000 participants, according to The Times of Israel.

Heavy security surrounded the parade, which in 2015 was the scene of a stabbing attack by a haredi Orthodox man that killed a 16-year-old girl. One thousand police officers and soldiers were deployed to secure the route, The Times of Israel reported.

Police detained 22 people, one of whom was found to be carrying a knife, they said on Twitter.

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Dive In

Explore

Most Popular

In Case You Missed It

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

This Is What Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade Looks Like

Copied to clipboard
Copied to clipboard

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.