Uncategorized
Queer Jews fought to join the Celebrate Israel Parade. This year, I marched in drag.
(JTA) — “Look mom, he’s a beautiful butterfly,” a child shouted, pointing at me, as I marched up Fifth Avenue in drag on June 4 at the Celebrate Israel Parade.
I could only imagine how meaningful it would have been for me as a kid to see drag included as part of this annual Jewish communal celebration on Fifth Avenue. I didn’t know that boys were allowed to be beautiful. Worse, I thought that there was something shameful about my own longing to embrace my femininity. Certainly, growing up, there were many who seemed only too happy to reinforce that shame. Now, strutting proudly in the parade in a fabulous pink sundress and 9-inch heels is my way of creating a Jewish world where one’s whole self belongs.
Drag helps me find joy in not fitting neatly into boxes or binaries. As a queer Jew who grew up in an Orthodox family, non-binary identity is not just a helpful framing for my gender, it also best captures my approach to religion and my relationship with Israel. Not quite a man and not quite Orthodox, I am equally not quite a woman and kind of Orthodox. While I may not label myself a Zionist, I most certainly celebrate Israel and consider the nation central to my Judaism.
For me, these internal conflicts create the tension that energizes my art. The ability to hold seemingly opposing identities at once provides an authenticity that is both thrilling and freeing. Perhaps this is why I am so drawn to drag. What better art form to express the full spectrum of identity with all its contradictions, complications, and kaleidoscopic colors? I find drag the most exciting and self-actualizing way to fully show up in a parade that celebrates the complexity of Jewish heritage and homeland.
My drag also pays homage to the unapologetic fighting spirit that allowed queer Jews into the parade in the first place. Today, the Jewish Community Relations Council-NY (the parade’s producers) fully embraces the LGBTQ marching cluster and makes us feel like valued members of the Jewish community. But queer organizations were not always welcome at this event. When New York’s gay synagogue attempted to March in the early 1990s, its invitation was rescinded when Orthodox day schools (which still appear to make up the majority of marching schools) threatened to pull out from a parade with an LGTBQ contingent.
As a closeted teen in yeshiva, I remember feeling crushed when I read about the parade’s gay ban. The internalized message was clear: I’m not wanted and there is no place for me in this Jewish community. I recall feeling angry that it seemed like queer Jewish organizations just gave up and gave in to homophobia without a fight. This fury became a drive that helped create JQY (Jewish Queer Youth), the organization I co-founded whose mission is to support LGBTQ youth from Orthodox homes.
It was not until years later, in 2012, when a 16-year-old JQY member named Jon asked if we could march in the Celebrate Israel parade, that I knew it was time to reopen the fight for queer inclusion. That year JQY organized a cluster of queer Jewish organizations and applied to march as an official LGBTQ contingent. At first there was little resistance and our application was accepted. But two weeks before the parade, I was contacted by the parade’s director, informing me that the banner for our marching group must have “no reference to a LGBT or Gay and Lesbian community.” Apparently, once again Orthodox schools were threatening to boycott the parade if queers were to be allowed to march under an LGBT banner.
This time, however, JQY would not back down. I made it clear to the parade director that his request to erase our community identity is unacceptable and that we intended to show up on parade Sunday ready to march with a banner that read “Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans Jewish Community.” I told the director that he was welcome to call the police and deal with the optics of arresting queer Jews attempting to celebrate Israel.
Soon after, I began getting phone calls from leaders of the largest queer Jewish organizations. To my surprise, instead of being encouraging, they pressured me to stand down and compromise. Their concern was that my position made queer Jews seem “divisive.” I nearly gave in to these calls for appeasement until I spoke with Larry Kramer, the gay activist, playwright and personal hero of mine. Larry’s words still ring true today. “They were wrong then and they are wrong now,” he said. “The pressure to not be divisive is just a convenient and cowardly device for professionals to hang their internalized homophobia [on].”
The JQY team devised a plan. Prior to the parade’s pushback, we had already received an invitation to a pre-parade wine-and-cheese reception hosted by Fox TV, which was televising the parade that year. I would attend the event with Jon, the JQY member who inspired this parade advocacy, and we would speak to every journalist in the room, letting them know how excited and thankful we were that, for the first time ever, there would be an LGBTQ marching cluster.
When we approached the parade director who was flanked by Fox TV execs, we shook his hand and loudly congratulated him on the incredible milestone for queer inclusion. Cornered and in the spotlight, his response could not have been more perfect. “Yes, we are so proud to have an LGBTQ cluster this year,” he said. We had won.
(Noam Gilboord, the chief operating officer of JCRC-NY, confirmed this account. He said he had not been aware of the pushback against JQY at the time and noted that a highlight of his parade experience this year was handing an Israeli flag to a friend’s trans daughter, who was marching with her community.)
That Sunday our LGBTQ Community cluster had more than 100 marching participants made up of queer Jews of all ages and denominations, as well as friends, family, and allies. We received an overwhelmingly supportive reaction from the crowd, made up of mostly Orthodox Jews. We felt like we were healing old wounds and breaking new ground. Most importantly, we demonstrated that Jewish unity means including the LGBTQ Jewish community by name.
The organizers of the parade were so impressed with our contingent that they awarded us the Most Enthusiastic Participation Award. With subsequent yearly participation, our LGBTQ cluster has become a parade staple and highlight for onlookers. It is one of JQY’s proudest accomplishments.
JQY leads the first-ever LGBTQ contingent in the Celebrate Israel parade in 2012. (Robert Saferstein)
I believe that it is precisely JQY’s focus on uplifting complex identities that made our case to join the parade so strong. For most of our teens, celebrating Israel is part of what it means to both be Jewish and part of the Jewish community (the nation of Israel). Participation in the parade for them is about belonging, not support for any political structure or agenda. It makes sense that Jewish queer youth want to experience communal belonging in an LGBTQ-affirming way. Yet there are still those on the extreme political right and left who refuse to see this nuance and put our participants at risk.
In 2017 our LGBTQ contingent was targeted, infiltrated and sabotaged by members of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Israel activist group. The protesters physically pushed, surrounded and blocked terrified queer Jewish minors who were bravely marching in front of their Orthodox families. Little did our teens know that it was bigotry from the left that would come for them that day.
This year we were particularly wary of marching among a predominantly Orthodox crowd — not because the Orthodox community has gotten more religious or pious, but because of reports that the Orthodox community has become more influenced by a political right that increasingly targets the LGBTQ community. One of the most influential public figures on the right is Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew who, besides being fixated on canceling companies that work with trans people, recently published an article blaming LGBTQ acceptance for the “failure of modern Orthodox Judaism.”
Our contingent this year was mostly met with smiles, cheers and applause. However, it was difficult to ignore the handful of people on nearly every block who covered their children’s faces, displayed angry thumbs down signs and even shouted homophobic or transphobic slurs as we passed. Over the last few years I have noticed an uptick in these kinds of negative responses. It would be negligent not to connect this change to the recent nation-wide scapegoating of trans youth, drag artists, and LGBTQ acceptance.
This week, for the first time ever, the Human Rights Campaign declared an LGBTQ state of emergency in the United States, after lawmakers in 45 states proposed anti-trans bills in 2023. Of those, 24 have proposed “Don’t Say Gay” laws that criminalize discussion of LGBTQ issues in public schools, and lawmakers in 14 states have proposed anti-drag laws. Politicians and pundits with huge platforms are openly describing queer advocates as “groomers,” conveying that there is a pedophilic sexual agenda to the call for LGBTQ human rights and dignity.
This is the environment that LGBTQ Jewish youth live in today and experienced while marching in front of the Jewish community at this year’s parade. This is why I chose to march in drag. Marching is an exercise in building resilience and self-esteem in the face of adversity. My message is to not be afraid, to never back down and to be as magnificent as possible. These principles are the foundations of drag.
Drag is a queer art form that empowers us to express ourselves with every color imaginable. Drag elicits joy and entertainment by subverting expectations and turning gender expression into theatrical performance. It is an artistic genre that can be innocent or scandalous. The form ranges from family-friendly fun like “Mrs. Doubtfire” and Drag Queen Story Hours, to hit TV shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the more adult fare found in late night bars.
At the Celebrate Israel parade, drag is as natural an aesthetic for queer marchers as Bukharan music and garb are to the Russian-speaking Jewish community cluster. For many LGBTQ Jews, drag is as much a part of our culture and heritage as the celebration of Israel. This year, I was the first participant to march in drag. Next year, I hope many more will follow. Because let’s face it, nothing lights up a parade quite like a fabulous drag queen.
—
The post Queer Jews fought to join the Celebrate Israel Parade. This year, I marched in drag. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Holocaust Remembrance Day Marked in Poland, Germany Amid Nazi Displays, Rising Antisemitism
Participants with Israeli flags look at the landmark Birkenau extermination camp gate in Auschwitz Museum – former Nazi German Concentration Camp during the International March of the Living (MOTL) in Oswiencim, Poland on April 14, 2026. Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Eighty-one years after the Holocaust, antisemitism remains rampant in the heart of the former Third Reich, with incidents in both Poland and Germany underscoring a disturbing resurgence of Nazi-linked provocation and hatred across Europe — even as Jews and Israelis around the world marked Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday.
Polish far-right lawmaker Konrad Berkowicz sparked outrage in Warsaw after displaying a modified Israeli flag during a parliamentary debate, replacing the Star of David with a Nazi swastika.
Berkowicz’s act was widely condemned as a deeply troubling distortion of Holocaust memory and a provocative example of “Holocaust inversion,” weaponizing Nazi imagery to target Israel in a manner that promotes hateful rhetoric.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly condemned the incident, calling on government officials to take swift and decisive action to address the matter, deter similar acts, and uphold public accountability.
“This act constitutes a clear example of Holocaust inversion, distorting the memory of the Shoah, and trivializing its victims,” EJC wrote in a post on X, using the Hebrew word for referring to the Holocaust.
“The use of Nazi symbols in this context is not only offensive, but represents a serious form of antisemitic provocation, particularly on a day dedicated to remembrance,” the statement read. “Preserving the integrity of Holocaust remembrance and ensuring that antisemitism is not tolerated in public institutions is essential.”
Polish MP Konrad Berkowicz displayed an Israeli flag bearing a swastika during a parliamentary debate in Warsaw on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This act constitutes a clear example of Holocaust inversion, distorting the memory of the Shoah and trivialising its victims.
The use of… pic.twitter.com/zeyRN5yG6T
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) April 14, 2026
The latest antisemitic incident came as Holocaust survivors from around the world joined thousands of participants in the 38th March of the Living, held at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in remembrance of the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II. The annual march goes from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the Nazis’ largest death camp where 1 million Jews were killed.
During a ceremony, Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy chief executive of the International March of the Living organization, warned that antisemitism continues to endure today despite the lessons of the Holocaust, stressing that its warning signs are once again becoming impossible to ignore.
“Since Oct. 7, antisemitism has surged and is spreading everywhere,” Krakovsky said, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. “The scale and normalization of this hatred echoes the dark times we have seen before and, today of all days, we know how it ended.”
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Poland has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Germany has also experienced a marked surge in antisemitism, with Jewish communities and Israelis facing an increasingly hostile climate and a growing number of disturbing public provocations.
On Tuesday, workers at the Eggenfelden tax office in Bavaria, southern Germany, discovered a structure over a meter high on the premises, allegedly designed to resemble a crematorium and adorned with a swastika and SS runes. The structure also had the inscription “Zyklon B,” the pesticide used by the Nazis to carry out the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers at Auschwitz.
This latest incident coame just three weeks after a replica of the Auschwitz concentration camp gate, also covered in swastikas, was placed in front of the same tax office.
Eggenfelden’s mayor, Martin Biber, strongly condemned the incident, calling it a deeply disturbing provocation that has shocked the community.
“This shocks me. It’s also a huge disappointment that someone here is so cowardly. Quite apart from the fact that an object that is presumably meant to resemble a crematorium represents a horrific act,” Biber told the German newspaper BILD.
Local law enforcement has launched an investigation into the incident, treating it as a serious suspected extremist provocation.
The incident coincided with a commemoration held by the Israeli Embassy in Germany for the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis at the Sachsenhausen Memorial in Oranienburg, in eastern Germany.
During the ceremony, Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor called for the resolute protection of Jewish life, warning that “antisemitism is not a relic of the past but remains visible and on the rise.”
He also emphasized that confronting the spread of terror by Iran is not solely Israel’s responsibility, warning of its expanding global reach and ideological influence.
“The mullahs are already part of the war in Europe. Their drones are falling in Ukraine. Their networks operate across continents – and their deadly ideology is spreading faster than any missile,” the Israeli diplomat said.
“Once again, Israel is on the front line. But the free world, especially Germany and Europe, has not only the responsibility, but the duty to confront this deadly ideology that threatens Europe from within,” he continued.
Andreas Büttner, the Brandenburg commissioner against Antisemitism, was also in attendance at the ceremony, where he reaffirmed the urgent need to confront and counter rising antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is not a shadow of the past. It is an open fire burning among us. And this fire is being stoked from various sides – by the extreme right, by the extreme left, and by those who disguise their hatred of Israel as moral concern,” the German official said.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
Uncategorized
Mossad Chief Says Iran Campaign ‘Will Only Be Complete When This Extremist Regime Is Replaced’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Mossad chief David Barnea in July 2025. Photo: Israeli Government Press Office (GPO)
The head of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad declared on Tuesday that the Israeli military campaign against Iran will end only with the collapse of the Islamist regime in Tehran.
David Barnea’s comments during a speech at a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony came as a fragile ceasefire teetered on the brink of collapse and prospects for renewed negotiations remained uncertain.
Israel secured “significant achievements” after 40 days of intense fighting against “those who have made the destruction of the Jewish state their guiding principle,” said Barnea, who noted that the campaign had reshaped the regional security landscape.
“The Iranian threat grew stronger before our eyes, before the eyes of the world, almost without interruption,” he continued. “We repeatedly warned of the nuclear danger as an existential threat, and time and again we warned about the quantities of ballistic missiles that threaten Israeli citizens across the country, as well as the danger posed to us by the Iranian regime.”
Barnea said that Israel and its close ally the US took matters into their own hands for the good of the entire world and warned that, at least for Jerusalem, the mission isn’t done until the Iranian regime collapses.
“Finally, we took our fate into our own hands and entered two wars out of necessity. Alongside us, in firm alliance and historic cooperation with the world’s most powerful nation, we fought together for the values of justice and freedom,” the Israeli official continued. “Our commitment will only be complete when this extremist regime is replaced.”
Since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched joint strikes, Israeli officials have repeatedly said that, in addition to degrading Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, they aim to “create the conditions” for the regime in Iran to collapse, weakening the government to the point that the Iranian people can revolt.
US officials have not publicly adopted regime change as a declared war goal. However, President Donald Trump has at times suggested that Iranians should rise up once the airstrike campaign ends.
During Tuesday’s ceremony, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also delivered a speech, saying that the US and Israel had “defined the removal of enriched material from Iran as a threshold condition for ending the campaign.”
“Iran’s regional proxies — from the collapsed Syrian regime to Hezbollah and Hamas — have been dealt heavy blows and have lost their capacity to pose a strategic threat to Israel,” Katz said. “There remains the task of confronting the rest of their power, and we are doing so — and will continue to do so — with full commitment and full force.”
On Monday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir approved plans to escalate the military campaign against Iran and advance expanded operational planning across multiple arenas in the region if the ceasefire ends, signaling continued pressure on Tehran’s military and strategic infrastructure.
“We are facing a multi-theater campaign unprecedented in the history of our people and of nations — against both immediate enemies on our borders and distant adversaries seeking our destruction,” Zamir said. “We are striking Iran and its proxies, inflicting heavy blows and significantly degrading their military capabilities.”
With the ceasefire deadline approaching in a week and regional tensions escalating, Trump said the White House has received a request from “the appropriate parties” to resume talks, adding that the Iranian regime is seeking to renew negotiations and reach an agreement.
“Iran will not have nuclear weapons. We agreed on a lot of things, but they did not agree to that. And I think they will agree to that. I am sure of it. If they do not agree – there will be no agreement,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
According to The New York Times, US officials have proposed a 20-year halt to Iranian uranium enrichment, which Iranian negotiators countered with a five-year suspension that Washington rejected, while also reportedly insisting that Iran dismantle major enrichment sites and surrender more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has offered to host another round of US–Iran negotiations in Islamabad in the coming days before the ceasefire expires, as diplomatic efforts intensify to prevent a renewed escalation.
The Trump administration has also stepped up pressure on Tehran to accept its demands by imposing a naval blockade on vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping chokepoint for energy supplies.
Since the start of the war, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors.
Iranian officials warned they would retaliate against any US naval blockade targeting their ports, calling the move illegal and warning that Gulf shipping routes would no longer remain secure if Iranian access were restricted.
Responding to Iranian threats in a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “If one of these boats approaches the blockade, it will be eliminated immediately, using the same elimination method that we use against drug smugglers at sea. It will be fast and brutal.”
Iran has also signaled it intends to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz even after the war ends, potentially imposing transit fees framed as compensation for wartime damage.
Following the latest escalation at sea, Israel had instructed its forces to maintain a high level of alert and prepare for the possibility of an immediate collapse of the ceasefire agreement, remaining on heightened readiness in case the truce breaks down and talks do not resume.
Israeli officials have said they do not rule out that Iran may be using the ceasefire to rebuild damaged air defense systems and restore military capabilities, while also attempting to bring weapons and sensitive technologies back into the country through overland smuggling routes.
Meanwhile, Iran appears to still be targeting Gulf states despite the ceasefire, with Bahrain intercepting seven Iranian drones in the past 24 hours in what officials described as a clear breach of the agreement.
Uncategorized
Smith College Trustees to Vote on Anti-Israel Divestment Measure
The campus of Smith College in April 2024. Photo: Instagram/Screenshot
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts is the site of the latest clash between anti-Zionists and administrators over institutional ties to Israel, as its trustees will vote on Thursday on a divestment measure proposed by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization.
Brimming with falsehoods, the proposal distinguishes itself from similar ones put forth at other colleges by accusing Israel of the crime of “femi-genocide,” which SJP describes as “sexual and reproductive violence” and mass murder perpetrated against Palestinian women and girls. The measure continues a pattern of depicting Israel, the most progressive country in the Middle East, as a foe of left-wing causes and an enemy of liberalism.
“The deliberate and disproportionate targeting of women represents an egregious practice of radicalized gender violence intended, in large part, to prevent the reproduction of a population marked for extermination,” SJP charged in the document, submitted in November. “This is a tactic common to settler colonialist projects and a grave injustice affecting women globally.”
Calling on Smith to withdraw investments in armaments manufacturers, SJP went on to describe divestment from Israel as a prelude to divesting from fossil fuels, a subtle but common tactic in which far-left groups place Jews and Zionists at the center of an array of alleged conflicts and social maladies.
“Militarism and the use of explosive weaponry has a devastating impact on our climate: military carbon emissions from the ongoing occupation and genocide of Palestinians exceeds that of several countries combined,” the proposal continued. “We face interconnected human rights crises at home and abroad that jeopardize our immigrant and international students, faculty, staff, and community members. Broader patterns of forced displacement are inseparable from climate change, and are fueled by a longer history of neoliberalization, securitization, and colonization.”
The divestment proposal draws on the principles of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Formally launched in 2005, the BDS campaign opposes Zionism — a movement supporting the Jewish people’s right to self-determination — and rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation-state. It seeks to isolate the country comprehensively with economic, political, and cultural boycotts as the first step towards its eventual elimination.
Smith College has not responded to The Algemeiner’s request for comment about the upcoming vote.
SJP has historically escalated its pressure tactics in the event that procedure fails to translate its demands into policy. Following Smith College’s rejection of divestment from Israel in spring 2024, dozens of SJP affiliated students occupied the College Hall administrative building for two weeks. The incident led to a face-to-face confrontation with Smith president Sarah Willie-LeBreton in which the students shouted over Willie-LeBreton as she attempted to negotiate with them, prompting her to say, “Screaming at me every time I talk does not show me respect; it does not begin to show me the respect I am showing you.”
Adopting divestment proposals dictated by anti-Zionist groups is a recipe for squandering tens of billions of dollars in endowment returns, according to a report published in September 2024 by the JLens investment network, an arm of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report said BDS would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion in growth, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
Citing fiduciary concerns, virtually all colleges asked to adopt BDS have turned it down.
In March 2025, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine did so when its Board of Trustees voted to accept the counsel of a committee that recommended maintaining investment practices which safeguard the institution’s financial health and educational mission. In a report authored by the college’s Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility, it said, “Interventions in the management of the endowment that are rooted in moral or political considerations should be exceedingly rare and restricted to those cases where there is near-universal consensus among Bowdoin’s community of stakeholders.”
Boston University rejected divestment the previous month, with its president, Melissa Gilliam, saying, “The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.