Amid a sea of rainbow flags and equal-rights banners at Tel Aviv’s 18th annual Gay Pride parade, an unexpected soundtrack filled the air: Hasidic music. Despite the suspicions of some marchers, it wasn’t an act of protest by Orthodox groups. Rather, the music was coming from a float designed by a group of Orthodox gay and lesbian Israelis.
The first-of-its-kind float, which made its debut at the June 10 parade, boasted the corporate sponsorship of Google, and carried members of the Bat Kol alliance of Orthodox lesbians; Havruta, an organization of Orthodox gay men, and Pride Minyan, a prayer group for Tel Aviv’s Orthodox gay and lesbian community.
These organizations promote the acceptance of Orthodox homosexuals — without taking a position on how their members should deal with the fact that gay sex is prohibited by almost all interpretations of Orthodox law.
The groups’ participation in the parade was emblematic of how far the gay Orthodox community has come, Daniel Jonas, Havruta’s spokesman, told the Forward. “Seven years ago, a gay or lesbian Orthodox person had three options — to stop being religious, to stay in the closet and within the religious community, or to commit suicide, which is something that happened, whereas today we are in a very different situation,” said Jonas, who came out as a homosexual man two years ago at age 27.
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