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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.”
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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.
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Shabbat Mikeytz: The Power of Dreams
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Dreams play a very important part in the Biblical narrative. We have read in recent weeks about Yaakov’s dream of angels going up and down a ladder. Yosef dreamt about his own future — as well as the dreams of the baker and the butcher and those of Pharaoh. The implication is that these dreams were all reliable messages, coming as Yosef says, from God.
The question we have to answer is to what extent dreams should be relied on. To this day, there are people who make a living out of interpreting dreams. Are they charlatans taking advantage of the credulous, or are they onto something?
When it comes to Yosef and Pharaoh, they both had dreams which came true. In the case of Yosef, it’s his turning from a victim in a pit to the ruler of Egypt. In the case of Pharaoh, it’s a premonition of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. But later on, when the Torah talks about false prophets, it’s talking about dreamers who should not be relied on (Devarim 13).
It will come as no surprise that the Talmud has pages about how to react to dreams and interpret them. Most take dreams very seriously, but disagree over interpretations and their validity. Others do not. The variety and disagreements that you can find in the Talmud are proof of how controversial dreams were then — and indeed, remain so for many people now.
Rav Chisdah said a dream that’s not interpreted is like a letter that’s not read. So if you ignore it, you’re not going to get any message. He also said that neither a good nor a bad dream is entirely fulfilled. On the cynical side, Rav Yochanan said that there’s no such thing as a dream without idle information — which is about right for most of my dreams.
The Gemara deals with the charlatans who make a living out of interpreting dreams. Rav Akiva said that there were 24 interpreters of dreams in Jerusalem, and each one disagreed as to what the interpretation was. Bar Hadaya, a popular interpreter, would give a good interpretation of a dream to anybody who paid him money and a bad interpretation if they did not. One rabbi who had a bad interpretation because he wouldn’t pay the first time, came back with money and then got a good interpretation. Plenty of those are still around today.
Then you have what I might call the Freudians. Shmuel bar Nachmani said that a person is shown in his dream only the thoughts of his own heart (i.e., mind). In other words, dreams are a reflection of the subconscious, which sounds as though it was written by Sigmund Freud himself. Of course they didn’t use those terms at that time. Rava said that one is neither shown a golden palm tree nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle in a dream. Dreams only contain images that a person has actually seen.
Nevertheless, these pages are full of all kinds of attempts to interpret what one dreams. I have to say that after a year of almost constant nightmares, I’m at last beginning to have sweet dreams. And so I wish you all a very happy Hanukkah and may all your dreams be sweet and amusing.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
The post Shabbat Mikeytz: The Power of Dreams first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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How the Media Blamed Israel for Ruining Bethlehem’s Christmas (Again)
Tourists walk in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Dec. 2, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Mussa Qawasma.
Once again, it’s that time of the year. But we won’t repeat the obvious: the media love blaming Israel for ruining Christmas in Bethlehem.
We will, however, point at the strategy they use to achieve this.
Here is the issue: The media need to cover what they see. And in Bethlehem, they see a baby Jesus doll placed in rubble; no foreign tourists; and protests in solidarity with Gaza. It is undoubtedly a somber Christmas in Jesus’ traditional birthplace, and it should be reported.
But the media should and can apply critical thinking in their choice of interviewees and background material. And they are not doing so.
The Only Priest in Bethlehem?
The media star of the season, except for Jesus, was (again) Munther Isaac, a pastor at Bethlehem’s Lutheran Church.
Outlets like Reuters, BBC, ABC News, and NBC News were happy to quote Isaac for a simple reason: His church was responsible for the media stunt showing baby Jesus as a Palestinian child amid Gaza rubble.
Fair enough. But nowhere did these outlets mention that Isaac has also justified the October 7 massacre, and has been described as “the high priest of antisemitic Christianity.”
Respected news outlets should not fall prey to the manipulations of one priest. Professional coverage should have bothered to contrast his view with that of other voices in the local Christian community.
But the problem runs deeper. These media outlets rely on Palestinian producers in Bethlehem who would never undermine — out of fear or bias — this anti-Israeli narrative. And their foreign bosses would not dare question their work, because they need their connections.
Selective Background
More proof of the media’s seasonal bias against Israel can be gleaned from the background information provided in certain stories.
Instead of reminding news consumers about the Palestinian Authority’s responsibility for the dwindling numbers of local Christians, many outlets include lengthy background paragraphs about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
In Reuters‘ story, for example, a whole section is dedicated to Israel’s settlement activity. One exceptionally irrelevant passage reads:
Israel has built Jewish settlements, deemed illegal by most countries, across the territory. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land. Several of its ministers live in settlements and favour their expansion.
Similarly, the AP’s “Christmas in Bethlehem” photo collection includes a picture of the security barrier that partially surrounds the city, as a man just happens to walk past graffiti that reads: “Walls are meant for bombing.” Never mind that this wall stood there when Bethlehem enjoyed crowded and celebratory holiday seasons.
And let’s not forget that this bias is not limited to the Christian holidays. Every holiday celebrated by Palestinians in the region — from Ramadan to Easter — gets automatically evaluated based on Israel’s actions.
It never works the other way around, making it seem that Palestinians bear no responsibility whatsoever. For example, the media never outright blamed Hamas for ruining the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which was deliberately chosen as the date for the October 7 massacre.
For the media, it seems, the “oppressed” Palestinians are granted automatic virtue, while the Israeli “oppressors” are seen as innately evil. The holiday season is just another opportunity to show it.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How the Media Blamed Israel for Ruining Bethlehem’s Christmas (Again) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hallmark’s Hanukkah Film Is No Miracle
Marc Summers and the stars of “Hanukkah on the Rocks.” Photo: Hallmark.
I have fond memories of watching Marc Summers host the show Double Dare.
Unfortunately, nobody dared the Hallmark Channel to write a good Hanukkah movie. To be sure, credit must go to the network for opting to make Hanukkah movies in the first place. I’ve seen them all in recent years, and some have had some panache and sizzle.
It’s painful, however, to watch the new film, Hanukkah on the Rocks. It is so riddled with cliches, that even if the writers were drunk, that wouldn’t be a good enough excuse.
Summers, who is Jewish, stars as a man living in Chicago. His grandson, a handsome radiologist named Jay, is trying to convince him to move to Florida to be with him and the rest of the family. When Jay’s love interest Tory is let go from her job as a lawyer, she says she used to bartend and she helps out at the local bar where they make Hanukkah drinks and celebrate there. (The film is shot in Canada for some reason, but whatever. Maybe Chicago was too expensive.)
The film’s strength is the two leads. Stacey Farber (Tory) and Daren Kagasoff (Jay) both bring charm to their roles, and there’s some chemistry between the two. And there’s a good obligatory kiss at the end.
The problem is the script is dreadful to the point of being offensive. Throwing Yiddish words out randomly doesn’t make a good film. Characters say “bubbie” a few times, and the word “shmendrick” is said by someone who isn’t religious. That would never happen in real life. It would be nice to see an Orthodox person or even a yarmulke on somebody, but I get that the makers of these films don’t want it to be *too* Jewish. I wonder if the makers of Christmas movies are afraid of making it too Christian.
I also get that the film doesn’t care about the food being kosher, but is it necessary to have crème fresh (dairy) on the same plate as short rib? That’s slightly better than lighting the menorah over cheeseburgers.
Jay is supposedly awesome because he helps a young Jewish boy named Parker, who is about eight, with how to pronounce the word “Maccabee.” Of course, there is no explanation of what the word means for the viewing audience. I almost cried at this part of the film, not only because it was so terrible, but because I realized that many Jewish children likely don’t know what the word Maccabee refers to.
Farber and Kagasoff have talent, but even Judah Macabee couldn’t do anything with this script. There is one cute scene where the two play cornhole and are verbally feisty. Why not more scenes like that?
A character says a drink should be called “He-Brew.” Get it? So original, if not for the fact that it already exists, made by Schmaltz Brewing Company. He’Brew is the flagship brand.
It’s nice that they show the blessings over the candles. But that should be the floor of what we expect, not the ceiling.
There was not a single funny line of dialogue in the entire film. I did laugh at one part that was unintentionally funny. How long was Tory out of work? She almost cries as she says she hasn’t been working — for one week. One week! But she says she has a good severance package. I can’t imagine what viewers who have family members who have been unemployed for a year or more think of someone about to shed tears from being out of work for seven days.
Then there’s the big “twist” at the end, which ends up being meaningless.
With movies this bad, Hanukkah is indeed on the rocks.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post Hallmark’s Hanukkah Film Is No Miracle first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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