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Israel has been an LGBTQ haven in the Middle East. Its new government could change that.
(JTA) — The minister holding the country’s purse strings calls himself a “proud homophobe.” Another minister says Pride parades are “vulgar,” while a deputy minister who wants to cancel them was just given power over some aspects of what schoolchildren are taught. And then there are the lawmakers who want doctors to be able to decline medical care to LGBTQ people.
These are all members of the new Israeli government helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and their extreme anti-LGBTQ sentiment has unnerved LGBTQ Israelis and their allies at home and overseas.
The politicians’ positions are not new, but their positions of power and leverage within the government are. Plus, the new government’s push toward a judicial overhaul that would give lawmakers the right to overrule the Supreme Court adds vulnerability to legal precedents that have protected LGBTQ Israelis.
“The majority of the gay community in Israel is feeling very unsafe,” said Hila Peer, the chairwoman of Aguda-The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel. “You have at least an intention to legislate laws that are dire for the gay community.”
Could Israel cease to be a haven for LGBTQ people in a hostile region? Netanyahu and others in his coalition say they are committed to protecting gay rights, but the volatile political situation means the future is hard to predict. Here’s what you need to know.
Where did LGBTQ Israelis stand before this government?
Israel is known as a gay haven in the Middle East, and Tel Aviv is frequently cited as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, with a Pride parade that draws hundreds of thousands of revelers from Israel and abroad. But the full picture is more complicated.
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Israel. Still, like other couples not recognized by the country’s religious establishment, LGBTQ couples can access the legal benefits of marriage.
Israel’s religious institutions control marriage for each of its constituent faiths, and the Jewish rabbinate hews to Orthodoxy. That means a slew of couples cannot marry in the country: interfaith couples; marriages between Jews in which one of the couple is not recognized as Jewish under Orthodox precepts; marriages between a man and a woman who was not divorced under religious law; marriages between a “Cohen,” or descendant of a Jewish high priest, and a divorced woman; and LGBTQ couples.
Under Israeli law, those relationships are nonetheless recognized as legal for the purposes of benefits, inheritance, parenting, adoption and other rights, if the couple is wed abroad, or in certain cases if the couple can simply prove a longstanding common-law relationship.
Israel’s Supreme Court has been essential to extending marriage rights to LGBTQ couples. In 2006, the court ruled that the country must recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad. In 2021, the court extended the right to same-sex couples to have children via surrogates, and last year, a lower court recognized marriages carried out remotely, which effectively allows same-sex marriages in which the couple, if not the officiant, is in Israel.
Other protections have come through the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, though less so in recent years. A rarely enforced ban on homosexual relations was taken off the books in 1988, and the army began allowing openly gay service members in 1993 — the same year the U.S. armed forces adopted a policy permitting gay service members only if they remained closeted.
In 1992, the Knesset passed a law banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, with some religious exceptions. In 1997, the Knesset extended to the LGBTQ community protections from defamatory language that are available to other communities. And in 2000, it passed the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law, which forbids the denial of services to any class of people, including based on sexual orientation.
Despite the legal protections, LGBTQ Israelis have long faced opposition from within the haredi Orthodox sector, where rabbis inveigh against homosexuality and politicians have vowed to run the country according to Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law. Jerusalem’s smaller Pride parade has frequently attracted extremist protesters from the sector, some of them violent. One teenage participant was murdered in 2015.
What changes do members of the current government want to make?
Politicians from the religious parties in the new government have floated multiple changes to laws and regulations that would diminish the status of LGBTQ Israelis.
The Religious Zionist Party, one of three in the Religious Zionist Bloc, is led by Bezalel Smotrich, who has called himself a “proud homophobe” and has envisioned Israel as a theocracy. At least two members of the bloc, including Orit Strok, say a proposed law would allow service providers, including physicians, to decline treatment to LGBTQ people.
Another party in the bloc, Noam, is led by Avi Maoz, who wants to cancel Pride parades. He also advocates for conversion therapy, a practice shown to increase the risk of suicide for LGBTQ people who experience it. Maoz, who was given a new role in charge of “Jewish identity,” was confirmed on Sunday to a Ministry of Education position with authority over external programming in schools.
Even the minister responsible for maintaining relations with Diaspora Jews has expressed anti-LGBTQ sentiment. Amichai Chikli favors recognition of same-sex relationships but derides LGBTQ “pride,” says he finds the annual pride parade to be “vulgar” and believes that sexual expression should be “subdued.” He has also said that the LGBTQ rainbow flag is an antisemitic symbol.
For now, these proposals and ideas exist in the realm of rhetoric. But the deal between Netanyahu’s party, Likud, and United Torah Judaism, the haredi Orthodox bloc, spells out that the 2000 prohibition-of-discrimination law will be amended “in a way that will prevent any harm to a private business that withholds services or products based on religious belief, as long as the product or service is not unique and a similar product or service is available nearby geographically and for a similar price.”
Both opponents and defenders of the change say it echoes recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have allowed evangelical Christian wedding retailers to decline services to same-sex couples.
That’s a license to discriminate, said Peer. “The Discrimination Act amendment will actually state that any person in Israel can be discriminated against based on ‘belief’ and that is simply a horrible situation for us to be in,” she said.
Is Netanyahu on board with anti-LGBTQ proposals?
Not directly. Netanyahu has never made anti-LGBTQ sentiment core to his governance, and he has been critical of anti-LGBTQ expressions by his coalition partners this month. He called the idea of letting medical providers deny care to LGBTQ patients “unacceptable” and has appointed a close ally who is gay, Amir Ohana, as Knesset speaker. (Some haredi lawmakers refused to look at Ohana, and a leading rabbi affiliated with Shas, one of the coalition partners, said Ohana was infected with a “disease.”) Netanyahu also opposed Maoz’s call to cancel the Jerusalem Pride parade.
Netanyahu has pointed to LGBTQ rights when insisting — as he has done frequently — that he is in control of his government, despite the prominent positions awarded to its extremist members.
“This Israel is not going to be governed by Talmudic law,” he told opinion journalist Bari Weiss. “We’re not going to ban LGBT forums. As you know, my view on that is sharply different, to put it mildly. We’re going to remain a country of laws. I govern through the principles that I believe in.”
But Netanyahu’s concessions to the far-right parties made to smooth his path back into power have his critics concerned that he may not keep his word on LGBTQ rights. The coalition agreement about the discrimination law, while not binding, indicates that he is willing to compromise.
Peer said Netanyahu’s signed pledge to the Religious Zionist bloc held more water with her than his protestations afterward.
“Why give the man the keys if you’re not going to let him drive the car?” she said.
Furthermore, even if Netanyahu prevents anti-LGBTQ laws from reaching the books, he backs proposed changes to the judiciary that would make vulnerable protections obtained through the courts.
How does the controversial judiciary overhaul proposal factor in?
The main action taken so far by Netanyahu’s new government relates to the country’s judiciary. His new justice minister, Yariv Levin, has proposed letting a Knesset majority of 61 members to override the Supreme Court if the Court strikes down a law. Levin has also proposed letting the Knesset majority appoint the majority on the panel responsible for appointing judges.
Those proposals, which are moving through the legislative process with Netanyahu’s support, would “in the long run totally and almost surely infringe on the rights” of LGBTQ Israelis, according to Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions.
“The coalition will have total power to appoint the judges which means they will be a lot more conservative, more religious,” Fuchs said. “If the Supreme Court will have been captured by a coalition which is very religious, very nationalist, very conservative, then we cannot rely anymore on the Supreme Court to further progress the rights” for LGBTQ people, or for others at risk of marginalization. He said the changes would likely result in a majority of right-wing judges within four to six years.
The proposals have drawn criticism from nonpartisan watchdogs, international legal experts and Israel’s left, which views the judiciary as an essential bulwark against theocratic governance. An estimated 100,000 people protested against the proposals in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, and more protests are planned.
But a majority of Israelis appear to support allowing the Knesset to override Supreme Court rulings, according to a poll released Monday by the Israel Democracy Institute.
Do anti-LGBTQ measures have public support in Israel?
No. Polls show the majority of Israelis back equal treatment for the LGBTQ community.
“We have an extreme right-wing group that is threatening to make changes that the vast majority of the public does not stand behind,” Peer said.
Fuchs said a backlash would likely inhibit, at least in the short term, the passage of any proposed laws targeting the LGBTQ community.
“There is a strong support of LGBTQ rights, so it won’t be easy to pass laws that bluntly and openly infringe upon LGBTQ rights,” he said.
Some backlash has already occurred. Strok’s speculation that doctors could deny service to LGBTQ people immediately spurred a social media video montage of staff for 10 medical service providers in Israel in which they repeated, “We treat everyone!” One of the speakers was a Hasidic male urgent care nurse, in a sign that even Orthodox sectors might not support extreme actions.
But Smotrich says he believes his party’s supporters are not bothered by anti-LGBTQ efforts.
“A Sephardi or a traditional Jew, do you think he cares about gays? He couldn’t care less. He says, ‘Do you think I care that you [Smotrich] are against them?’” Smotrich said in a private conversation with a businessman that the public broadcaster Kan published on Monday. (The coalition is also threatening to defund Kan.) In the comments, Smotrich outlined some limits on his activism. “I’m a fascist homophobe, but I’m a man of my word,” he said. “I won’t stone gays.”
What are LGBTQ activists in Israel and the Diaspora saying and doing?
LGBTQ Israelis are playing a crucial role in the mounting anti-government protests, activating a network that put some 100,000 people in the streets in 2018 after Netanyahu voted against a bill to allow gay couples to use surrogacy.
And even without any concrete changes taking place yet, LGBTQ activists say talk is already creating a hostile environment.
Ethan Felson, the CEO of A Wider Bridge, a U.S. organization that advocates for Israel’s LGBTQ community — and stands up for Israel within the LGBTQ community — likened the language in the coalition agreements to U.S. party platforms, which do not necessarily influence policy but set a tone nonetheless.
“It can foreshadow, or it could be words on a page,” Felson said. “But those words should never be on any page. I heard from the mom of [an Israeli] trans kid this morning just how fearful they are for their families, their security. We know all too well that when people say bad things in one place we can expect other people to act out in hateful ways in another.”
Felson, whose past is in Israel advocacy — for years he directed the Jewish Federation of North America’s Israel Action Network — suggested that the part of his current job advocating for Israel in the U.S. LGBTQ community just got a lot harder.
“I would not like to wake up and find out that Kanye West is in charge of the Civil Rights Department over at Justice,” is how he described the challenge, referring to the rapper and designer who in recent months has come out as an antisemite.
Felson’s group is urging U.S. Jews who meet with politicians from the new government to raise concerns about LGBTQ Israelis. It is also planning to call on pro-Israel funders to fill any budget gap created if the Israeli government slashes funds for LGBTQ services, as Felson expects it to be.
A Wider Bridge is also planning to forego its traditional presence at Tel Aviv Pride to instead join the Jerusalem parade, which takes place in a more fraught atmosphere, according to Felson.
“There’s a time to protest and a time to party,” he said.
Stuart Kurlander, a philanthropist who is prominent in the LGBTQ and the pro-Israel communities, said that he is consulting with LGBTQ activists in Israel, and should things take a turn for the worse, making up for lost government funds could be one avenue for his philanthropy.
“If it develops and there are impacts to the LGBTQ community, then I along with other philanthropists will look to try and fill those gaps,” he said.
Kurlander said in an interview that he takes Netanyahu and Ohana at their word that they will stem an anti-LGBTQ backlash. He said his support for Israel would not be diminished if the changes by the extremists go through, but that other donors might be negatively affected.
“It’s not going to deter me and my support for Israel,” he said. “I suspect it may for some.”
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In defense of the Sarah Hurwitz we know — and the nuance we all need in this moment
(JTA) — Over the course of the Obama and Biden administrations, each of us served as the White House liaison to the American Jewish community. In that role, we were responsible for reaching out to Jewish Americans from across the political and denominational spectrum, listening to their concerns, understanding their needs, and representing their voices in the White House.
Over the past couple of weeks, we were stunned to watch as our friend and former colleague, Sarah Hurwitz, became the subject of a mob attack on social media.
It is hard to watch anyone you care about be savaged online, but it was particularly painful to see this happen to Sarah. In the White House, where she served as a speechwriter first for President Barack Obama and then for First Lady Michelle Obama, Sarah was known for her kind heart, integrity and fierce loyalty to her colleagues and the leaders she served. We often marveled at the compassion she wove into the speeches she wrote for our bosses. Her empathy for the plight of Americans of every background and her commitment to social justice and equality were evident in her devotion to serving our country.
We watched with pride as she went on to write widely acclaimed books about Jewish ritual, tradition, and spirituality and about the effects of antisemitism on Jewish identity. Meticulously researched, her books are an exercise in nuance, empathy, and complexity as she articulates and wrestles with competing viewpoints. In her most recent book, for example, she both passionately defends Zionism, the national independence movement of the Jewish people, and also fiercely criticizes the current Israeli government.
So you can imagine our dismay when several far left and far right X accounts posted and retweeted a video clip of remarks she made at a recent Jewish conference that was selectively edited to cut off the actual point she was making. What followed was a torrent of outrage from people who claimed Sarah was arguing that we shouldn’t teach Holocaust education because doing so makes young people think the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is a genocide. Others claimed she was saying that genocide only matters when it’s perpetrated against Jews.
Such sentiments would obviously be obscene, and we were shocked that people would attribute them to Sarah, someone who just published a book in which she expressed profound anguish about the unbearable deaths of civilians in Gaza. And we were appalled when people began circulating more out of context videos of Sarah with the intent of portraying her as callous and cruel.
Those who took the time to track down and watch the entire original video, including the part that was cut off, would have seen the actual points Sarah was making about antisemitism education, which were as follows: Some forms of prejudice are about a majority dominating a minority whom they see as inferior — a kind of “punching down.” But as many scholars have noted, antisemitism is about “punching up.” The Holocaust happened in part because the Nazis insisted that the Jews, who were 1% of the German population, were actually the powerful ones and were using their power to harm ordinary Germans. They accused Jews of undermining Germany’s World War I efforts and destroying the German economy. The Nazis claimed that killing Jews was therefore a form of self-defense, that they were protecting themselves against a powerful, depraved enemy.
Sarah was also conveying that, contrary to the impression young people get on social media, what happened in Gaza is not analogous to the Holocaust. It was a devastating war that does not fit neatly into a simplistic frame of oppressor versus oppressed. That black and white paradigm disregards the complex challenges that continue to stymie a resolution to this heartbreaking conflict.
But just try having this kind of complex discussion on social media where algorithms are designed to prize outrage and gin up hatred and too often amplify dissension sown by foreign actors.
Sarah certainly could have been more sensitive in the language she used, but the points she was actually making are worth considering.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
The post In defense of the Sarah Hurwitz we know — and the nuance we all need in this moment appeared first on The Forward.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’
Rep Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on Sunday likened the Trump administration’s immigration rhetoric to Nazi depictions of Jews.
“It reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany,” Omar said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, commenting on a social media post by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, in which he suggested that “migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions, and terrors, of their broken homelands.” Miller, who is Jewish, is the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Omar called Miller’s comments “white supremist rhetoric” and also drew parallels between his characterization of migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. to how Jews were demonized and treated when they fled Nazi-era Germany. “As we know, there have been many immigrants who have tried to come to the United States who have turned back, you know, one of them being Jewish immigrants,” she said.
Now serving as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Miller is central to the White House’s plans for mass deportations and expanded barriers to asylum. During Trump’s first term, Miller led the implementation of the so-called Muslim travel ban in 2017, which barred entry to the U.S. for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and pushed to further reduce a longtime refugee program.
Rep. Ilhan Omar: “When I think about Stephen Miller and his white supremacist rhetoric, it reminds me of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany.” pic.twitter.com/GAjIMqFq26
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 7, 2025
Miller’s comments echoed similar rhetoric by Trump after an Afghan refugee was accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House last month, killing one.
Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting last week that Somali immigrants are “garbage” and that he wanted them to be sent “back to where they came from.” The president also singled out Omar, a Somali native who represents Minnesota’s large Somali-American community. “She should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump said.
In the Sunday interview, Omar called Trump’s remarks “completely disgusting” and accused him of having “an unhealthy obsession” with her and the Somali community. “This kind of hateful rhetoric and this level of dehumanizing can lead to dangerous actions by people who listen to the president,” she said.
The post Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller’s comments on immigrants sound like how ‘Nazis described Jewish people’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Nigeria Seeks French Help to Combat Insecurity, Macron Says
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Pool
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has sought more help from France to fight widespread violence in the north of the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, weeks after the United States threatened to intervene to protect Nigeria’s Christians.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has witnessed an upsurge in attacks in volatile northern areas in the past month, including mass kidnappings from schools and a church.
US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of possible military action in Nigeria, accusing it of mistreating Christians. The government says the allegations misrepresent a complex security situation in which armed groups target both faith groups.
Macron said he had a phone call with Tinubu on Sunday, where he conveyed France’s support to Nigeria as it grapples with several security challenges, “particularly the terrorist threat in the North.”
“At his request, we will strengthen our partnership with the authorities and our support for the affected populations. We call on all our partners to step up their engagement,” Macron said in a post on X.
Macron did not say what help would be offered by France, which has withdrawn its troops from West and Central Africa and plans to focus on training, intelligence sharing and responding to requests from countries for assistance.
Nigeria is grappling with a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, armed kidnapping gangs in the northwest and deadly clashes between largely Muslim cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers in the central parts of the country, stretching its security forces.
Washington said last month that it was considering actions such as sanctions and Pentagon engagement on counterterrorism as part of a plan to compel Nigeria to better protect its Christian communities.
The Nigerian government has said it welcomes help to fight insecurity as long as its sovereignty is respected. France has previously supported efforts to curtail the actions of armed groups, the US has shared intelligence and sold arms, including fighter jets, and Britain has trained Nigerian troops.