Midsumma Festival
The Midsumma Pride March returns on Sunday 2 February 2025, and Jewish organisations Jews of Pride and Aleph will be taking part in the march.
The Midsumma Festival is currently on in Melbourne until February 9, bringing together a diverse mix of LGBTQIA+ artists, performers, communities and audiences to celebrate queer pride.
The Midsumma Pride March returns to Fitzroy Street, St Kilda on Sunday 2 February 2025, and Jewish organisations Jews of Pride and Aleph will be taking part in the march.
Macnamara MP Josh Burns and Member for Caulfield MP David Southwick released a joint statement supporting the march, “We are proud to support the Jews of Pride contingent at the 2025 Midsumma Pride March. The Midsumma Festival is about inclusion and celebrating people’s individuality and a contingent of Jewish community members is testimony of the festival’s primary aim of inclusion.”
They added, “The Jews of Pride have long been an integral part of Victoria’s vibrant and inclusive community, serving as proud representatives of the Jewish community within LGBTQIA+ spaces. We know that since October 7, 2023, that our Jewish community has witnessed an upsurge in antisemitism and hate, and that so many have felt challenged in spaces they thought were safe. It is important for our Jewish LGBTQIA+ community to stand together, proud of who they are, and march together in the 2025 Midsumma Pride March.
“So, to our Jews of Pride contingent, led by their representative organisations – Aleph and the Jews of Pride – we extend our unwavering support.”
The Midsumma festival celebrating queer pride, offers diverse art forms and genres, including visual arts, live music, theatre, spoken word, cabaret, film, parties, sport, social events, and public forums.
Included in the festival is Jeremy Goldstein’s award-winning international performance Truth to Power Café showing on February 5 and 6 at Theatre Works, which was created by Goldstein and Henry Woolf and is directed by Jen Heyes.
The event is told through memoir, image, film, poetry, music, and truth-telling in response to the question: ‘Who has power over you and what do you want to say to them?’ It is about speaking truth to power as a non-violent means of conflict resolution.
Talking to the AJN Goldstein said, “I speak of the power my father had over me when he was alive, and I speak of my lived experience of AIDS and HIV, and then I start calling other people up… and one by one, people come up and tell response to the question in the same way that I that I do.”
In the performance, Goldstein wears a blazer with a Star of David and a pink triangle, which were used to mark Jews and homosexuals in the Holocaust.
Goldstein said he has been on the road with this project now since 2018, “This will be the 61st and 62nd editions of the show, and I’ve staged it in eight countries with over 800 community participants of all ages, experiences and backgrounds.”
“I think what it does… is that it creates a pathway for people who wouldn’t normally imagine themselves speaking from their local stages,” he said.
Goldstein expressed that the performance comes at an important time, particularly in the US, where there are attempts to overturn marriage equality and funding to HIV programs worldwide have been paused.
The show was inspired by the political and philosophical beliefs of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter and his inner Jewish circle “The Hackney Gang”, who included Jeremy’s late father, Mick Goldstein, and poet/actor Henry Woolf.
For tickets visit https://tickets.midsumma.org.au/event/396:564/
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