JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Vice President Mike Pence is midway through a 35-hour whirlwind tour of Israel. The former Indiana governor has been received by Prime Minister Netanyahu, delivered a speech in the Knesset that included a recitation of the shehechiyanu prayer, and eaten dinner with the Prime Minister. In just a few hours he will meet with President…
Last week, four years after I graduated from the Israel Defense Forces officer course, I was promoted to the rank of captain. For me, this is not a personal achievement; it is one dedicated to my commanders. Understand that my journey was not like any other. I am Israel’s first openly transgender soldier. A year…
In just a few seconds, five people brought the Celebrate Israel parade to a standstill. A block shy of the June 4 parade’s dispersal point on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, five undercover protesters broke ranks with the LGBTQ contingent and formed a picket line in front of it. One of the protesters unplugged the pedicab-mounted…
Jerusalem’s gay pride parade, in which I marched on Thursday, was full of contradictions. On the one hand, Israeli politicians competed to show their support for the march. Likud MK Gilad Erdan came with his posse of security guards, and party members waved Yesh Atid banners in the march’s staging area. On the other hand,…
I confess when I first saw the simulated image of an airplane bedecked in the colors of the rainbow flag, ostensibly on its way to Tel Aviv Pride, I thought it was some sort of joke. Yet it really was the Israeli government’s intent, as part of an 11 million shekel ($2.9 million) advertising blitz,…
A prominent African-American transgender activist canceled her scheduled appearance at the Brown University Hillel after facing criticism for allegedly supporting the Jewish group’s “pinkwashing” of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Janet Mock announced Wednesday that she had cancelled her talk scheduled for March 21 at the Providence, Rhode Island Ivy League school, The Brown Daily…
The debate over pinkwashing at the Creating Change conference in Chicago this past weekend was agitational. It was uncomfortable. It brought out tensions in our relationships, our values and our communities. That’s a good thing. I was always taught that Shabbat is a time to imagine the world to come. So, when I learned that…
Days after 200 anti-Israel demonstrators forcibly shut down a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference, a group of American LGBT activists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, condemned the protesters’ behavior as “unacceptable and not in accord with the Task Force’s values of pluralism, inclusivity and thoughtful debate.” The strongly worded open letter…
