J’LEM CENTER DELAYS GAY PRIDE PARADE
By Etgar Lefkovits and JPOST staff
The international gay pride parade planned to take place in Jerusalem this summer has been postponed to 2006, due to the upcoming implementation of the disengagement plan.
A committee meeting of the Jerusalem Gay and Lesbian Center arrived at the decision in coordination with Interpride, the international association overseeing the parade, Israel Radio reported.
“The gay community in Israel is not oblivious to what is going on in the country and to the major public event that the Gaza pullout will be,” Hagai El-Ad, the director of Jerusalem’s Gay and Lesbian Center, said earlier this month.
The decision by local organizers to postpone the 10-day event due to the Gaza withdrawal represents a dramatic about-face for the group, which had previously refused to even discuss the possibility of a postponement amidst rising public opposition to the parade over the last couple months.
The move was seen as a face-saving measure in light of police opposition to issuing a permit for a major event that coincided with the planned pullout from Gaza.
Police were planning to ask organizers to postpone the event since their forces will be overburdened with the concomitant withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, officials said, although El-Ad noted that such a request had not been received to date.
The 10-day international gay event was scheduled to take place on August 18, just three days after the planned new date for the month-long Gaza withdrawal.
Even before the conflict with the Gaza pullout emerged, the idea of holding such an international parade in Jerusalem was a source of bitter controversy.
In a largely conservative city, with a strong religious and traditional makeup, the idea of holding such an international parade in Jerusalem is seen by many, even outside of religious circles, as out of touch with both the spiritual character of the city as well as the sensitivities of its observant residents.
The planned international gay parade in Jerusalem spurred a rare show of unity among senior Jewish Christian and Muslim religious leaders in the Holy Land who had joined forces in urging the government to cancel the event, which they viewed as a deliberate affront and provocation to millions of believers around the world.
At the same time, the parade won the support of the three major non-orthodox streams of Judaism, including the head of Israel’s Masorti (Conservative) movement, Rabbi Ehud Bandel.
The movement’s public backing of the parade was questioned by some other Rabbis from the traditionalist movement as out of touch with basic core values and the Bible.
Jerusalem held its first annual local gay parade only three years ago.
The last international gay parade, which took place in Rome in 2000 despite the wrath of the Vatican, attracted about half a million participants, while local organizers had been expecting tens of thousands of revelers for the Jerusalem event this summer.