RSS
Israeli LGBTQ soldiers hope the war in Gaza will bolster their fight for equal rights at home
TEL AVIV (JTA) — One month after his fiancee was killed in the Israeli military’s Oct. 7 battle against Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri, Omer Ohana received a small bit of solace: His government passed a bill granting recognition to same-sex partners of fallen soldiers.
“My love! From this day forward I am an IDF widower,” he wrote from the Knesset gallery, where he witnessed the passage of the bill, for which he had campaigned.
“It is a description I would give anything in the world to give up, a title that in my life I never thought I would receive six days before we were supposed to get married, when you left to save lives and rescue families held captive in Be’eri,” wrote Ohana, to his fiance, Sagi Golan. “You fell in battle against cruel terrorists and today, in your honor, we received equality in death. Now we will continue to demand equality also in life.”
That sentiment has become a rallying cry among Israel’s LGBTQ soldiers, many of whom feel the war has placed their status in stark relief: They have been called to risk their lives on the front lines in Gaza but are denied rights afforded to heterosexual couples at home — including the right to wed in Israel. Opposition to same-sex marriage comes in large part from religious political parties, many of whose haredi Orthodox constituents do not serve in the military.
One call for LGBTQ rights in Israel went viral in November, when IDF soldier Yoav Atzmoni posted a photo of himself in uniform in Gaza, holding a Pride flag inscribed with the words “In the name of love” in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
Atzmoni hoped “to show the Israeli community that we are equal in the way we pay our debts, and I hope after the war we receive our rights,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“There are those in the governing coalition whose kids are in yeshiva or in Miami,” he added, referring to the haredi parties as well as Yair Netanyahu, the son of the prime minister, who recently returned from Florida. “While those from the opposition who support LGBTQ civil rights are sending their kids to Gaza.”
Atzmoni also hoped to convey the message that the IDF “is the only army in the Middle East in which we can live outside of the closet.” That’s been the case since 1993, when Israel began allowing openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve.
Yoav Atzmoni holding a Pride flag in Gaza. (Courtesy of Atzmoni)
Homophobia is still an issue in the IDF — a 2017 survey by an Israeli LGBTQ youth group found that 95% of LGBTQ soldiers it polled had encountered discrimination while serving. But a report by the Aguda, Israel’s leading LGBTQ organization, found that only 1% of the reported incidents of homophobia it tallied in 2021 occurred in the military.
And barriers continue to fall: The first Israeli transgender woman soldier to fight in Gaza was recently interviewed by Channel 13, a major network.
“There is no doubt that the IDF is one of the more progressive organizations in Israel regarding their acceptance of LGBTQ people, but even in progressive places there are still cases of discrimination,” said Hila Peer, the Aguda’s chairwoman. “I do not expect them to be perfect in spite of all the work that has been done to be more inclusive.”
She added that prior to the November passage of the law granting equal rights to LGBTQ military widows, “there was a de facto policy in the army to recognize such partners in practice and I think that this says a lot.”
Polls show that a majority of Israelis favor affording LGBTQ citizens with fully equal treatment, but Israel’s Orthodox political parties, which are allied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently opposed efforts to expand LGBTQ rights, citing prohibitions on same-sex relations in traditional Jewish law. In an interview in June, months before the current war broke out, haredi lawmaker Yitzhak Pindrus said the LGBTQ community is “the most dangerous thing for the State of Israel, more than ISIS and Hezbollah.”
LGBTQ Israelis have achieved victories in the courts. Like others who are unable to legally wed in Israel, they can get married abroad and have those marriages recognized by the government. Last year, due to another court ruling, same-sex couples and single men became able to have children via surrogacy in Israel — something Ohana and Golan had hoped to do. And last week, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that same-sex adoption must be allowed. But Peer believes it should not be up to the courts to make such changes.
“The adoption law could have been fixed legislatively, as the only problem was with the language of the law, [which said] ‘a man and his wife,’” she said. “The government did not agree to amend the law so we had to appeal to the High Court and wait for it to fix the law, which happened last week, but these are processes that take many years.”
In the context of that debate, Asaf, a reservist who serves in a unit focused on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, felt gratified to see Atzmoni wave the pride flag in the context of an Israeli war.
“It was very exciting and heartwarming I have to say,” said Asaf, who gave only his first name, citing military regulations. During Israel’s last ground invasion of Gaza, in 2014, he said, “it was not as visible… He sent the message that I am fighting in Gaza, and I am gay, and I can wave the Pride flag like the flag of Israel.”
Israel has boasted of its LGBTQ soldiers, with an official social media account sharing a photo of a gay soldier getting engaged last month. But critics of Israel have said that the country’s trumpeting of its LGBTQ freedoms amounts to “pinkwashing,” a tactic to distract from the country’s human rights record and mistreatment of Palestinians.
While Israeli Jews broadly support the war effort, some members of Israel’s LGBTQ community echoed that critique, and said they did not appreciate seeing the Pride flag on the battlefield.
“In the name of love we shell, dehydrate and starve the people of Gaza; in the name of love one and half million people are uprooted… In the name of love more than 10,000 civilians, among them thousands of children, are dying,” Israeli trans activist Tamar Ben David wrote in a Facebook post that received a stream of comments that were also critical of Atzmoni’s photo.
Other LGBTQ Israelis say that they haven’t focused on their battle for civil rights during wartime. On Israel’s northern border, where Israel is bracing itself for a wider conflict with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, Carmel, an IDF medic, says he is “very much in my service.”
“Here in the north, there are a lot of explosions, anti-tank missiles, and combat from the air,” he said. “We are trying to take care of ourselves and guard the kibbutz that was evacuated, and protect the country.”
Before the war broke out, LGBTQ rights were at the heart of fierce debate over the government’s campaign to weaken Israel’s courts. Asaf, the IDF soldier, fears that once the war ends, anti-LGBTQ attitudes will again prevail among the country’s leadership.
“Slowly we are seeing changes happen, even in the state, as people understand we are one community, but I am not optimistic because I see what is happening in the government, with people who do not support the community,” he said. “I want to believe that one day it will happen because it is the right thing to do, and it is a shame that some changes had to occur as a result of tragedy and war.”
—
The post Israeli LGBTQ soldiers hope the war in Gaza will bolster their fight for equal rights at home appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Federal Lawmakers Launch Investigation Into Antisemitism at US Medical Schools
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a bullhorn during a protest at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on March 11, 2025. Photo: Daniel Cole via Reuters Connect
Campus antisemitism at US medical schools is next in line to be examined by the federal government following the announcement on Monday of a major probe to be conducted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
US lawmakers announced an investigation into three institutions: the University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine, the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.
“This investigation will aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitism discrimination, are needed, ” education committee chairman Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote in a letter to Steven Dubinett, dean of UCLA’s Geffen School. “The committee has become aware that Jewish students and faculty have experienced hostility and fear at the hands of peers, colleagues, and administrators at UCLA Med, and it has not been demonstrated that the university has meaningfully responded to address and mitigate this problem.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, a Jewish faculty group at UCLA’s medical school, titled Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg), first sounded the alarm about antisemitism on the campus in February, issuing an open letter which called attention to a slew of indignities to which they have been subjected since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The primary agent of anti-Jewish hatred identified by JFrg is the Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism (AAAR), a university-created body that has allegedly violated its mission to promote pluralism by lodging defaming accusations at the pro-Israel Jewish community in a series of reports, one of which contained what JFrg described as intolerable distortions of fact.
JFRG’s letter went on to enumerate a litany of falsehoods spread by AAAR, including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression, involving university and non-university actors,” aligned itself with conservative groups, and harmed minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
The letter listed nearly a dozen other incidents previously unknown to the public, including a seminar on “Structural Racism and Health Equity” which categorized Jews as white to disparage both groups and displayed images of “‘capitalists’ with long hooked noses”; a medical group engaging in atrocity-denial, issuing a statement charging that Hamas kidnapped no one on Oct. 7; and an administrator attending an event which glorified self-immolation and whose organizers attacked Jewish faculty as “anti-black racists” for criticizing Hamas.
Walberg said that choosing not to respond to such incidents may have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and requested a trove of documents from UCLA “related to reports or complaints of antisemitic acts” filed with administrative officials. He asked the same of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine and University of Illinois College of Medicine, where he said Jewish students conceal their Jewish identities from medical workers for fear of being targeted for intentional malpractice and are denied the chance to hold public events to raise awareness of antisemitism.
Antisemitism in university medical schools is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, a study published by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department in May found.
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study contained survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish health-care professionals employed by campus-based medical centers reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
The research was not StandWithUs’ first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December, its Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims. That study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, fearful of threats to safety.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author Alexandra Fishman said in May. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
Polish Soccer Fans Display Offensive Banner Saying Poland ‘Regrets Saving Jews’ During Holocaust
Worshipers wrapped in Israeli flags at a prayer service in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: Reuters/Kacper Pempel
Fans of the Polish soccer team Górnik Zabrze displayed a banner that featured a hateful message referencing the Holocaust and a crossed-out Israeli flag at a match on Saturday against fellow Polish club GKS Katowice.
At the beginning of the second half of the game, Górnik fans unfurled a banner that said, “Our ancestors died to save Jews. We are starting to regret it,” according to Polish media. Saturday’s game ended with Górnik winning 3-0.
Górnik- Gks pic.twitter.com/FaplWZpZB6
— Gładki82 (@adki82) August 23, 2025
The messaging may have been in response to a banner that said in English “Murderers since 1939” which was displayed by fans of Maccabi Haifa on Aug. 14 during the Israeli team’s UEFA Conference League qualifying match against Poland’s Raków Częstochowa that took place in Debrecen, Hungary. The banner showcased by Maccabi Haifa fans referenced the year Germany invaded Poland and seemingly criticized Poland’s complicity in the atrocities committed during Nazi occupation. More than 3 million Polish Jews were subsequently killed during the Holocaust, as well as 3 million non-Jewish citizens.
UEFA launched disciplinary proceedings against Maccabi Haifa because of the anti-Polish banner and fined Raków more than $11,000 “for transmitting a message unfit for a sports event” at the same match. The Polish team was also fined close to $35,000 and banned from selling tickets to its fans for the next UEFA competition match after supporters lit fireworks at the Aug. 14 game.
A week before the Maccabi Haifa game, Rakow Częstochowa fans displayed a banner that said in Polish: “Israel Murders and the World Is Silent.” It was featured at a match on Aug. 7 between Maccabi Haifa and Rakow Częstochowa in Czestochowa, Poland.
Earlier this month, the UEFA invited two refugee children from the Gaza Strip to participate in the medal ceremony at the UEFA Super Cup final in Udine, Italy, and had several refugee children display a banner on the pitch that read: “Stop killing children – Stop killing civilians.”
RSS
Hundreds of Film Industry Professionals Pressure Venice Film Festival to Condemn ‘Genocide’ in Gaza
Workers set up the red carpet a day before the start of the 82nd Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Hundreds of professionals in the Italian and international film industry signed an open letter on Saturday that calls on organizers of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival to take a “clear and unambiguous” stand and condemn what they describe as a genocide and ethnic cleansing taking place in the Gaza Strip.
Actor Toni Servillo – star of this year’s Venice opening film “La Grazia” – director siblings Alba and Alice Rohrwacher, director Marco Bellocchio, and filmmaker Matteo Garrone are among the Italians who have gathered under the banner V4P (Venice4Palestine) to publish the open letter. They call on the Venice Film Festival, its parent body the Biennale di Venezia, and the festival’s independent parallel sections Venice Days and the International Critics’ Week “to be more courageous and clear in condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing across Palestine carried out by the Israeli government and army.”
“Stop the clocks, turn off the stars,” reads the first line of the open letter, which is written in Italian. “The burden is too much to carry on living as before. For almost two years now, we have been seeing images of unmistakable clarity from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Incredulous and powerless, we keep witnessing the torment of a genocide carried out live by the State of Israel in Palestine. No one will ever be able to say: ‘I couldn’t know, I couldn’t imagine, I couldn’t believe.’”
“It is time not only for empathy but also for responsibility,” they added. “Semantics, language, words, and images are not accessories, especially for those who believe in art: they are a form of fundamental and necessary resistance. Otherwise we should surrender to the evidence that being a filmmaker or journalist today no longer makes any sense.”
Members of the film industry outside of Italy who signed the letter include French Venice Golden Lion-winning director of “The Happening” Audrey Diwan, fellow French director Céline Sciamm, Iranian-French filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, and French-Swiss director-actor Laetitia Dosch.
Others who signed the open letter are British filmmaker Ken Loach, French actor Swann Arlaud, Bulgarian director Kostantin Bojanov, British actor Charles Dance, and Palestinian brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser. The duo from Gaza together won Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival this year for their film “Once Upon a Time in Gaza.”
Saturday’s letter also includes accusations that Israel has been persecuting Palestinians even before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, and that it is time for members of the film industry to take a stand “to uphold the truth about ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, colonialism, and all the crimes against humanity committed by Israel for decades.”
“As the spotlight turns on the Venice Film Festival, we’re in danger of going through yet another major event that remains indifferent to this human, civil, and political tragedy. ‘The show must go on,’ we are told, as we’re urged to look away — as if the ‘film world’ had nothing to do with the ‘real world,’” the letter states. “The Biennale and the Venice International Film Festival should celebrate the power of art as a means of transformation, testimony, representation of humanity, and development of critical consciousness. And it is precisely this that makes art an extraordinary means for reflection, active participation and resistance.” The letter concludes with the proclamation “Free Palestine!”
The 82nd Venice Film Festival starts on Aug. 27, almost six weeks to the second anniversary of the deadly Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 2023, in which 1,200 people were murdered and 251 hostages were kidnapped to Gaza.
The Biennale released a statement in response to the open letter earlier this week, according to Variety. The cultural organization said it and the festival “have always been, throughout their history, places of open discussion and sensitivity to all the most pressing issues facing society and the world.”
“The evidence of this is, first and foremost, the works that are being presented [at the festival],” the Biennale noted, before giving as an example the film “The Voice of Hind Rajab” by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania. The political drama, which is in competition this year at the festival, is about the killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl, who was trapped in a car that had allegedly come under fire by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024. The Biennale further noted in its statement that last year’s Venice Film Festival featured “Of Dogs and Men” by Israeli director Dani Rosenberg. The film is about a 16-year-old named Dar who returns to her kibbutz in Israel to look for the dog she lost during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“The Biennale is, as always, open to dialogue,” the organization said in conclusion.