Joan Rivers Supports Surrogacy for Israeli Gay Couple

Joan Rivers Image by Getty Images
When she’s not in bed with Sarah Silverman or giving scathing fashion advice, Joan Rivers advocates for the rights of gay couples in Israel.
Rivers joined Fashion Police co-stars Kelly Osbourne and George Kotsiopolous, as well as a number of Israeli celebrities in lending support to Yuval and Liran, an Israeli couple raising awareness about surrogacy for the LGBT community in Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported Monday.
The couple told their story in a video — which went viral in Israel — holding up signs criticizing Israeli surrogacy laws, which they see as discriminatory against gay couples.
Celebrity supporters held up similar signs in both Hebrew and English, stating “We want them to have a baby too.”
Rivers’ attention was called to the issue by A Wider Bridge, a US organization that encourages deeper connexions between the American LGBT community and Israel. The group’s website explains that it was easy to get Rivers on board: “The wonderful gesture of Joan Rivers and her gang came after a request A Wider Bridge sent to ‘Fashion Police’ head writer and Joan’s close friend, Toni Tripoli, with links to the stories on A Wider Bridge’s website. ‘We’re so touched by the story, and the cast would be happy to do it,’ Tripoli replied almost immediately.”
“Joan Rivers was one of the first names on our minds, because she has always been outspoken about her support for gay people and her love for Israel. On Thursday she proved to us that she’s not only talking, she’s also doing,” said Arthur Seipian, CEO and founder of A Wider Bridge, in a statement released to Israeli media.
Israeli celebrities backing the cause included singers Eyal Golan, Harel Skaat, Dudu Aharon and Ninet Tayeb, journalist and TV personality Gal Uchovsky as well as entrepreneur Pnina Rozenblum, The Jerusalem Post reported.
See the original video below (enable closed captioning for English subtitles):
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!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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.