Israel stands with Orlando
With shtreimels and pride flags, they absorbed the tragedy together, members of Jerusalem’s LGBTI community and members of its Charedi community.
With shtreimels and pride flags, they absorbed the Orlando tragedy together, members of Jerusalem’s LGBTI community and members of its Charedi community.
When the festival of Shavuot ended in Israel on Sunday night and the news of the Orlando attack sunk in, the emotion was so strong for Sarah Weil and some other local LGBTI activists, so they headed to the city-centre Zion Square.
Around 50 of them gathered, lit candles, and mourned the dead. As they did, and as Weil held her rainbow flag with a Star of David, they invited passersby to join them, to discuss the attack, and to absorb the news together.
“A lot of people asked us what were doing there, and then gave us their support,” Weil told The AJN, noting that this included all sectors of Jerusalem’s ideological and religious population, including Jews ranging from secular to ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Arabs.
This was especially poignant as, just 10 months ago, an extremist from the fringes of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community carried out a stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s pride march, killing 16-year-old Shira Banki and injuring six others.
Weil and her Yerushalmit organisation have been regular visitors to Zion Square ever since, trying to build tolerance. On Sunday, their message resonated with many Jerusalemites.
Within the LGBTI community, a tragedy that would be hard to accept at any time was particularly haunting because of its timing. “We are still very much damaged from last year’s events,” Daniel Jonas, an LGBTI community leader in Jerusalem, told The AJN. “It takes us back to those feelings we experienced less than a year ago.”
In Tel Aviv, like in Jerusalem, members of the local LGBTI community held a spontaneous candlelit vigil. “People were talking about how it would feel here if someone came in and carried out an attack in a gay bar,” said Avihu Meizan, cultural director of Tel Aviv’s LGBT Centre.
The solidarity with America was tangible just about everywhere in Israel this week. The Tel Aviv municipality lit up the City Hall in rainbow colours to show solidarity with the Orlando victims.
The attack was top of the agenda at Monday’s cabinet meeting. “We are all shocked at the horrific massacre in Orlando,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, after having already expressed his disgust shortly after the attack. “On behalf of the government and people of Israel, I would like to again express our condolences to the American people and the families at this especially difficult hour.”
Politicians from various other parties echoed Netanyahu, including Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog, who called it a “hateful massacre”.
President Reuven Rivlin wrote to US President Barack Obama: “The Israeli people stand shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers and sisters in the moral and just fight against all forms of violence and hatred. On behalf of all of Israel, I send my condolences to the families of the victims, and prayers for a speedy recovery of the injured.”
NATHAN JEFFAY
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