A gunman dressed all in black opened fire on a room full of teens in a LGBTQ center, killing two and wounding fifteen. The incident is being taken very seriously and security around other LGBTQ centers has been stepped up.
“This is a most severe incident. The police are investing major resources and means to capture this murderer and his accomplices,” Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said, speaking from the murder scene.
“These were teenagers,” Yaniv Weisman, chairman of the Israeli Gay Youth organization, told The Jerusalem Post.
With tears in his eyes, Weisman added, “they came to this center from across the country to talk to one another and receive help. This was supposed to be a safe place for them. Someone knew what they were doing when they came here. This is not a pub or a club.”
“Today, someone sent a message that gays in Tel Aviv and Israel are not safe,” Weisman said.
Within hours of the attack, hundreds of Tel Aviv’s LGBTQ community gathered to protest the killings. “Love is allowed, killing is forbidden,” read one protest sign. Tel Aviv is one of the most progressive and cosmopolitan cities in Israel. Their gay community is very active and visible. But homophobia is still just as active and visible. Some have speculated that the attitudes of Israeli politicians have allowed such homophobia to go unchecked and uncountered.
“I warned in a column last year that Israel is a place which, one the one hand has liberal laws, but on the other does not attempt to counter homophobia,” Danny Zak, a gay activist and journalist, told the Post during the demonstration. “A murder was waiting to happen,” Zak added.
“The Shas party has the blood of two innocent kids on their hands,” he said. “Shas has blamed gays for earthquakes and diseases. This is incitement, but no one is put on trial for it,” he said.
The Shas faction released a statement following the shooting in which it called for the attacker “to be found and tried. Murder is of course against the Torah’s path and every attack is a contravention of the religion of Israel.”
Meretz MK Nitzan Horovitz, who is gay, arrived at the scene of the shooting. “There has been non-stop incitement,” he told the Post. “I very much hope this is not the result of comments made by public figures and Knesset members. They need to understand that some people will take action,” Horovitz added.
Still, many Tel Aviv gays have declared that they will not be intimidated by such a terrible act.
Lior Kay, a gay activist who took part in the demonstration, said, “I just want say one thing. We will not be intimidated. We will not be frightened by this act of terrorism.”
Despite a politically active and very conservative Orthodox Jewish population, Israel has granted many rights to gays that the United States have not. Military service is not limited to heterosexuals – and in a small and perpetually threatened nation where 2 year service is compulsory for all citizens, this should not come as a surprise. People may also perform municipal services in leau of combat duty, and , The Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders in Israel qualifies as such. However, many gays choose to enlist in active duty forces. Same sex marriages are not performed by the Israeli government but same sex marriages performed elsewhere are recognized as legal. There is no such thing as civil marriage in Israel, however, and any marriages not approved by strict religious guidelines – such as mixed-faith marriage or simply marriages that do not want any religious affiliation – must take place outside the country.
One must keep in mind that a nation that grants equality to the gay community is not immune to homophobia – and also that even in a nation that has homophobia, equality can be achieved.
As a gay man, as a Jew, and as a dual national (USA & Israel) I ‘m on the verge of tears about this.
I lived in Tel Aviv during the early 90s and was greatly impressed with what a open and diverse city it was.
LGBT Israelis and LGBT Arabs were actively involved in building bridges, and still are, I’m proud to say.
But then, as now, the ultra-Orthodox were a problem, as religious fanatics seem to be in every culture.
My heart goes out to the victims and their families.
My God…my heart broke at the news. I know so many Israelis here in the US and there in Israel. My next door neighbors are an Orthodox rabbi and his wife and two little girls.
THEY have a very, common sense and what could be called liberal view of gays and lesbians.
It’s not so much liberal, but just, basic respect of giving what you should expect to get.
You invest love and respect in gay people, you will get it back. Perhaps even tenfold. This is their core belief about people in general.
I don’t think I was surprised at their feeling on this, but I know this incident will break their hearts too, because they are sensitive people.
They just got back from spending six months in Israel through the bookend holidays of Hannukah and Passover.
It was stressful because of all the checkpoints, searches… things like that.
I LOVE the internet because we could spend so much time going back and forth and they could tell about what was going on there and I learned a LOT.
The sad part about this incident is that segregation makes you an easier target for violence. Thugs know that you’ll be concentrated together and this can maximize the effect of terrorizing your group.
Had these young folks been integrated into any other club, the target couldn’t have been so specific. As it is, gay folks would otherwise be hard to spot.
Which is why I’ve always thought that non married status, certain kinds of social isolation creates a process that identifies you as gay as surely as if you’d grown horns. And THAT is exactly why people demand such segregation, to know who you are and where.
Which contradicts the logic of being openly gay in the first place.
The faces of all my young Israeli friends are swimming in my mind’s eye right now. Those kids who contacted me through Matthew’s Place from around the world. Each casualty of hate anywhere, kills a bit of me here.
Perhaps, I need to consult with Rabbi Cohen on this. He’s a young man himself, knows his two worlds American and Israeli. Or maybe, just because we are friends, he cares to give comfort in a frightening and harsh world.
Either way, this incident IS one of religious incitement against a misunderstood and maligned minority…like Jews themselves.
For Emily:
https://www.ksl.com/?nid=576&sid=7367803