We hoped LGBTQ acceptance in Israel would help Palestinians. We were wrong.
Our theory of change was if Jerusalem is more tolerant towards the LGBTQ community, it will naturally become more tolerant toward Palestinians. Image by Getty Images
Though progressive change comes rarely and slowly in Israel, the one area where there is consistent positive change is LGBTQ rights. Pride Month is a good time to reflect on our Israeli Movement’s success and the challenges ahead.
The progress in the last twenty years toward equal rights and full acceptance of the LGBT community is proof that Israeli society can change, if it is compelled to do so. Recent LGBT rights achievements include a win in our own “Masterpiece Cakeshop” case — a print shop in Be’er Sheva fined by the Israeli courts for refusing to print fliers for an LGBTQ organization. The case took what appeared to be a singular case in one city and turned it into a national precedent against discrimination.
In 2005, when the court required the Municipality of Jerusalem to hang Pride flags for the Pride march in the city, local television ran a news story interviewing Jerusalemites who had no idea what the flag symbolized. “Is this the Druze flag?” one of the interviewees asked on a 2003 Jerusalem street. “Maybe it’s a symbol of the spring?” offered another. Almost no one knew the flag and few supported the LGBT community. The transformation of consciousness and the change in the legal status of the LGBT community is, without a doubt, the definitive liberal victory of recent years.
For us, the activists who led the LGBTQ community in Jerusalem 15 years ago, it was clear that we were fighting a just battle for members of our community, but at the same time, we were fighting in order to change Jerusalem for the better in a much broader sense.
Our theory of change was simple: When Jerusalem is more tolerant towards the LGBTQ community, it will naturally become more tolerant towards Palestinians. If our society will learn to accept us, the ultimate “other,” then undoubtedly additional “others” would receive better and equal treatment in the future.
But we were wrong.
The struggle of the LGBTQ community was strategic, focused, and determined. Members of the community joined the struggle and identified with it, and some even paid with their lives for taking part in it. Three LGBTQ teens were murdered in two incidents in a youth club in Tel-Aviv and during a Pride march in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem became a much better city for the LGBTQ community, but the situation for the Palestinian community has worsened. We hoped to change the relationship with the “other”, but in fact, we broadened the understanding of who is “us” and left the Palestinians outside.
Today, progressive activists and movements in Israel are struggling on many fronts: for the environment, for gender equality, for freedom of and from religion, for workers’ rights, for minorities in the majority Jewish society. And then there is the biggest fracture in Israeli society — the rift between Jews and Arabs — manifested in the discrimination and racism in Israel and the continued occupation of Palestinians outside of sovereign Israel.
The most common paradigm of these liberal struggles focuses on gradually liberalizing society in the hope that it will eventually impact other struggles as well. Each struggle is carried out separately in order to maximize the political potential to create a coalition around the topic of the struggle. We have been assuming that when the struggle is won, society will become more liberal as a whole, helping to mend the greater fracture.
The paradigm is morally compelling. But it has failed.
Each one of these struggles is important and just. However, social organizations interested in deep change in Israeli society need to recognize the limits of separate struggles and their negative influence on the central fracture of our society. This recognition can lead us to a change of perspective on struggle and theory of change — even when we are the ones leading these fights. It’s our responsibility, regardless of our other struggles, to mend the fracture between Jews and Arabs, the primary rift in Israel today, and to look for a bridge between struggles.
As Reform Jews in Israel, we have been struggling for over 30 years for Jewish pluralism, religious freedom, and gender equality. Over a decade ago, we took on the struggle against racist incitement against Arabs. As part of our work we monitored the racist hate group Lehava — and following a long legal struggle succeeded in getting the Attorney General to press charges against the head of the group. We led the effort to disqualify Kahanist candidates from running for Knesset, and we continue to work against Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a state-employed Rabbi who regularly incites against Arabs.
We learned that focusing on our narrow — though just — struggle was not enough. Creating an Israel where there is more than one way to be Jewish couldn’t be limited to the significant issue of the recognition of our Rabbis and our institutions. We had to broaden the definition of our struggle in order to live up to our Jewish values.
This is a lesson for all progressive struggles — including LGBTQ equality. There is a lesson here about how we can achieve a more just society for all here in Israel: by taking our commitment to democracy and to Judaism beyond our single issues.
Rabbi Noa Sattath, a Reform Rabbi, is director of the Israeli Religious Action Center, the social justice arm of Reform and Progressive Judaism in Israel, and vice president of the Israeli Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism.
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