On Friday June 10, 2011, Tel Aviv had
its annual gay pride parade. According to an article in the Huffington Post, by Michele Chabin, "this year's annual gay pride festival was
even more colorful with a parade float, sponsored by Google, representing the
country's religious gay and lesbian communities."
Although many Orthodox still believe
that homosexuality is wrong, and that the Torah considers it an
"abomination", there are Modern Orthodox communities that are beginning
to be more open-minded to the idea of same-sex relationships. Religious Jews
still suffer from fear of 'coming out', and often times keep their
homosexuality hidden. Many of these Religious gays and lesbians often marry
opposite sex partners to keep their homosexuality hidden. They either remain in
the closet, or as Chabin's article
puts it, "simply stop living a religious life altogether."
Tel
Aviv's gay pride festival showed many 20 and 30 something year olds wearing
shirts that said "Religious Pride Community", and there were even
spectators yelling out "Good for you!", according to Chabin's story. The first gay pride festival was held in 1998. It occurred a month after Dana International, a
twenty-seven year old transsexual singer, won the Eurovision Song Contest. Dana
was a former soldier and son of working-class Yemenite parents according to Rosenthal's chapter, Oy! Gay. Rosenthal mentions that Dana's triumph had thousands of Israelis
"spilling in to the streets of Tel Aviv" cheering in celebration for
one of its own winning the contest viewed by a worldwide audience of a billion.
A month later, 15,000 turned out for Tel Aviv's first annual gay pride festival
with signs reading "Gay, religious, and proud" along with "Orthadykes",
a group of Orthodox lesbians. Since then it seems like Religious Jews have been
broadening their thoughts on this matter. Although there is still a long way to
go before it is totally accepted.
In Rosenthal's
chapter, a young woman by the name of Nurit tells of her experience living
in a West Bank settlement, near Jerusalem, being Orthodox and lesbian. Her
brother, a soldier in the Israeli military, came out to their parents and had
the support of his unit. She states that "being gay doesn't clash with
being a good soldier", so gays are accepted. It seems as though being a
lesbian is not as tolerated. She mentions that growing up religious means that
women are raised to be wives and have children. You are not a real woman if you
do not want children. In the Orthodox community, the rate of marriage for gays
and lesbians who continue being "in the closet", is much higher than in
the secular world. In the Rosenthal chapter,
Nurit mentions that "In Israel, kids are everything, the center of life.
On a deep psychological level, I think it's about continuing the Jewish
people." This may be why there is a growing number of gay and lesbian
couples wanting to have children, or "gaybies." According to a Haifa
University's social work professor Dr. Ben-Ari, in many western countries
lesbian teens are often opposed to traditional family structure, but in Israel
the idea of family is something that is welcomed amongst them. This may have to
do with Nurit's point of children being the epicenter of Israeli life and the
continuing line for the Jewish people. 
Both articles point to a 2001
American documentary called Trembling Before God. This documentary explores homosexual
Orthodox and ultra-Orthadox Jewish men and women. In Rosenthal's book, Nurit tells of her gay brother first taking her
to see the film at Jerusalem's Cinematique. She recalls her experience watching
it as "her life on that screen." This sentiment is also expressed in
the Huffington Post article by Chabin,
were Daniel Jonas, a spokesman of Havruta (an Orthodox gay men's association)
says the film "had a strong impact on religious society." He mentions
that the film put the exile of gays and lesbians from religious communities on
full display. Some were kicked out of their homes, their communities, and
committed suicide. He also credits Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip
for the changing attitudes in Orthodox life. Many Orthodox began to question their
faith and the trust of rabbis after they assured them that God would not let
the Israeli military forcibly uproot religious settlers from Gaza. Orthodox
Jews had to start thinking for themselves. In Chabin's article, Lev (a lesbian activist) makes the point that
familiarity will breed acceptance, even if it will come at a slow pace.
It
appears as if Chabin's article is very pro-gay. She does a good job of getting
quotes from many gay and lesbian activists, community representatives, and
Orthodox coordinators. She also does a good job in letting the reader know that
even though Israel is very progressive when it comes to this matter, within the
Religious Jewish community, there is still a slow climb to full
open-mindedness. What I feel the author was missing were more accounts of
people's struggle being gay within the Orthodox community, especially of
lesbian women. Rosenthal does a good job of having Nurit's story. Her viewpoint
of Israel's center of life being children, and woman are thought of as breeders
was invaluable in understanding the root of this countries ideology. I feel
that Chabin's story misses that point, even though she does mention the example
of Gidi Grunberg's (a coordinator of three groups of Orthodox gay and lesbian
teens) father telling the family therapist that Gidi was "ill".
Chabin's article does a good job in explaining the significance of the
documentary Trembling Before God. Daniel Jonas' explanation, I felt really
nailed the impact of that movie among religious groups. Rosenthal's take on the
documentary really explained the impact it had on actual gays and lesbians, but
Chabin's article told a little about the documentary and painted a clearer
picture of why it was so significant.
Here is the trailer for the documentary Trembling Before God:
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