The necklace that refuses to stay hidden

It started with a gesture most Jewish travellers know. Tucking a Chai necklace under your shirt when you don’t feel safe.

For Tel Aviv-based artist and street-art researcher Niro Trip (real name Niro Taub), that small, automatic act of concealment became the spark for #AmIsraelGay, a project that fuses Jewish and LGBTQ+ identity into a single, unapologetic symbol you wear on your chest.

“I thought about the years I spent in the closet and the long habit of concealment, and how those fears now resonate with the worries of Jews and Israelis facing rising antisemitism and public violence,” Trip told The AJN. “My Jewish and queer identities are not going back into the closet.”

The project riffs on the Hebrew phrase “Am Yisrael Chai”, swapping “Chai” for “Gay” and transforming the familiar pendant into a bold declaration of dual identity. It launched as street art during Tel Aviv Pride, with oversized metal chains and giant “GAY” pendants strung between balconies and buildings across the city. What began as large-scale public installation has since become a wearable, and is now a limited-edition pendant designed to prompt conversation in everyday life.

A graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design’s visual communication department, Trip is known for urban art that uses humour and chutzpah to push for LGBTQ+ visibility. Earlier works, including “Kikar Malchut Yisrael” and “Anshei HaPatma”, have adorned Tel Aviv’s walls for years.