Queers for Israel
All across the world, celebration of Pride Month is happening. Unless the latest round of attacks from Iran and Yemen force planners to cancel events this year the same as last, Tel Aviv will host a large parade on June 12. Jerusalem had its March for Pride and Tolerance on June 4.
Israel upholds comprehensive civil rights for LGBTQ+ people, including allowing same-sex couples to serve as surrogate parents1 and recognizing same-sex marriages performed abroad - although, regrettably, not yet authorizing them to take place in Israel2.
A Pride festival is scheduled for July 25 in Lebanon, where discrimination against LGBTQ+ people remains widespread but attitudes are softening and tolerance increasing.
No other Arab or Muslim-majority country holds public LGBTQ+ events, and in most of those countries, to varying degrees, violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender individuals and formal criminalization of their sexual relations are pervasive. Among Palestinians, the subject of gay rights is taboo and LGBTQ+ persons’ lives are at risk.
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) booted Israel’s affiliated organization in 20243, affirming ILGA’s “unequivocal solidarity for the Palestinian people4.”
Ironic, some?
More self-contradiction, antizionist LGBTQ+ folks, for you to chew on: Iran’s government, which treats same-sex relations as a capital offense5 but, same as you do, claims to champion Palestinians, launched ballistic missiles against us last night. In the safe room here in Zikhron Yaakov, I heard the boom of those rockets.
School is now called off, public activities restricted. If Israel’s Pride Month events are likewise dropped, Iran can take the credit.
So enough with the double standards, moral inversion, and gaslighting!
LGBTQ+ rights proponents who dismiss (as “pink-washing”) the observation that Israel is the only country in region to unequivocally embrace human rights for that group should get over themselves, get real, and abandon their self-righteous, preposterous attempt to justify a viewpoint based on twisted logic - an outlook without a shred of moral credibility.
They’ll have to reckon with their suicidal hypocrisy for demonizing - and blacklisting supporters of - Israel (which endorses lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s rights) while siding with Israel’s enemies (who threaten, traumatize and kill those same people).
Many LGBTQ+ community members still stand with Israel, yet the trend among activists is increasingly, decidedly and loudly antizionist. Negation of Israel is becoming a litmus test for admission to gay advocacy circles and organizations6.
“Queers for Palestine”? Really?
A majority of Israelis - 74% according to a recent poll - favor “full legal equality” for LGBTQ+ folks, 64% understanding this to specifically include civil marriage7.
The sizable minority opposed reflects a bias consonant with deeply ingrained traditional religious convictions as well as the authoritarian grip Israel’s Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) political parties have upon law relating to the Jewish life cycle.
That bias could explain why, unlike in the U.S. and some other countries, in Israel same-sex marriage ceremonies are still not legal (although - to reiterate - Israel does recognize same-sex couples whose marriages were formalized elsewhere).
Holy Scripture has nothing to say about lesbian relationships, but it strictly forbids gay ones (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). Anything hinting of transgender identity is proscribed (Deuteronomy 22:5). Rabbinic law, losing no time to endorse the Torah’s ban on sex between men, widened the circle of carnal no-nos by eventually getting around to discouraging sex between women (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yevamot 76a, Shabbat 65a).
And yet, most Israelis disagree.
The survey’s data breakdown of respondents’ solid backing for “full equality” tracks their religious (or non-religious) affinities: secular/89%; 75%/traditional; 53%/religious; 25%/ultra-Orthodox. This poll finds over half of Israel’s religious Jewish population ready to license behavior our religion has historically outlawed!
The fact that Israel is so open to LGBTQ+ culture dispels the cartoonish image of this society as a potential or emergent fascist theocracy ruled by intolerant religious zealots who have free rein to carry out their fanatical agenda8.
On the contrary, Israelis’ receptiveness to Pride culture shows respect for diverse sexual orientations in an open society. As better understanding of human nature and needs arises, Jewish life evolves.
Having been physically intimate with women and men, I guess I belong (more or less?) in the LGBTQ+ fold. My sympathies are with those who diverge from “strai(gh)t” and narrow conformism.
I know I’m not alone in opposing mindless lockstep antizionist sentiment that - contrary to the openminded, widely embracing spirit of gay liberation - is threatening to engulf the field of LGBTQ+ rights advocacy.
I know there are plenty of other queers for Israel. Resist. Speak up. Speak out.
(LGBTQ+ flag streaming from the wall of Zamarin, a cultural center in Zikhron Yaakov Culture Center, June 2026)
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/parenting/article-691495
https://standwithus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/LGBTQ-Rights-in-Israel.pdf
https://www.humandignitytrust.org/country-profile/iran/
see: https://www.jta.org/2024/12/11/culture/queer-jewish-teens-feel-abandoned-by-lgbt-groups-that-condemn-israel ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/isolated-by-their-allies-lgbtq-jews-gather-to-parse-prides-anti-israel-leanings/ ; https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/06/06/anti-zionists-excluding-lgbtq-jews-pride-spaces-new-report-says/ ; https://www.jfeed.com/antisemitism/london-trans-pride-zionist-ban ; https://www.4timorr.org/queer-anti-zionism-the-evolution-of-antisemitism-in-lgbtq-communities/ ; https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/queers-for-palestine-and-the-death-of-irony
For illustrations of this concern (from, alternately, a patriotic Israeli and an antizionist perspective), see: https://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-mayor-warns-israel-heading-toward-a-fascist-theocracy/ ; and https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230123-roadmap-for-turning-israel-into-a-theocracy-and-putting-jewish-law-above-all-uncovered/
Actually, one could argue that Scripture and Talmudic literature does not prohibit "homosexuality" since "sexuality" is a much later idea that does not exist in their understanding of human psychology and behavior. What is prohibited and permitted are certain forms of sexual activity. Biblically we do not know what forms of male/male physical intimacy was permissible. What we have is a prohibition against male/male anal intercourse that is most likely related to the honor/shame system. In Late Antiquity the binary "natural/unnatural" appears in discussions of human sexual behavior. It is important to note, however, that this binary was not a product of empirical observation of the natural world, but that it reflected culturally based philosophical assumptions.