The annual Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade hits town on Friday the 8th June!

It’s not by accident that Tel Aviv was recently voted the world’s top Gay City – and with one of the biggest annual pride parades in Europe, there’s surely little doubt of Tel Aviv’s openness and liberalism.

The Pride Parade as per usual is preceded by a week-long party, with Gay Pride Week events running from June 1st til June 8th, including chillout sets every day on Hilton Beach from some of Israel’s leading club DJs; that amazingly colorful and happening parade will be wrapping up the week’s festivities.

The Gay Pride Parade actually sets off at 13:00 from Bograshov Street, and goes through Ben Yehuda Street and Arlozorov Street, ending up at Gordon Beach for a humdinger of a closing party that starts at 15:00. At the party on Gordon Beach you can catch sets by DJ Ofer Nissim and Elliyott, Tal Cohen (Shirazi) and Avihai Partok, while electronic ensemble TYP, hitting it big in Europe at the moment, will also be performing.

Be warned – Tel Aviv will be jammed and traffic will be a nightmare!

Catch more on the official Facebook page.

And for a taste of what to expect from the Tel Aviv Pride Parade…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Leading GLBT website GayCities handed Tel Aviv a landslide victory, with The City That Never Sleeps just “pipping” second placed New York to the post by almost 30%! See the final results here.

Those of us in the know know that Tel Aviv is an awesome city, full of things to do and see. That Tel Aviv is so accepting of alternative lifestyles (let’s face it, this is the Middle East!), you might not have known. That includes one of the biggest gay pride events in the world, every summer…

As the guys behind the vote put it:

The gay capital of the Middle East is exotic and welcoming with a Mediterranean c’est la vie attitude.

Couldn’t have put it much better ourselves.

The annual Pride Parade is usually the climax of a week long Pride Week in Tel Aviv, meaning a ton of parties and special events all week long for the gay community. If you hadn’t noticed, the rainbow flag has been flying high and proud this week on the streets of Tel Aviv…

Tomorrow’s events are as follows (those of you NOT attending the Parade should bear in mind that the center of Tel Aviv will be closed to traffic and be a mess during the middle of the day):

10:00 – A special pride happening is happening before the real Parade at “Gan Meir”, 35 King George St. Expect to get in the partying mood with decent music and good times!

14:00 – The Parade kicks off from “Gan Meir”,  and heads down Bograshov, Ben Yehuda, Arlozorov, HaYarkon and then up to Gordon Beach.

15:00 – The Parade should get to Gordon Beach around 3pm, where you can expect a huge beach party that will last until around 7pm. Some top DJs are lined up, including Alfonso Patisano (Berlin), Lovegang (Hamburg), Shimai (Bacelona), Oscar Loya (Berlin), Erez Ben Ishai, and Kiara Duple!

To keep an eye on what’s happening on the Tel Aviv/Israeli scene, check out the Gay TLV Guide.

We say: RESPECT!

And here’s a taster from last year…

Click here to view the embedded video.

First of all, remember that in Gay Years, I’m a fossil. In January I turn 40 – old enough to begin studying Kabbalah…and to become invisible to much of the community. As someone whose twenties ended with the last millennium, I’m no longer obsessed with finding The place to be seen every night of the week. Secondly, I have a penis. I’ve met some cool lesbians in this city, but you won’t find me hanging out at their meeting spots. I’m fundamentally not interested in what they’re selling. And while I love to dance, I don’t drink or “party” anymore. So, if you’re looking for notes on Tel Aviv’s meth scene, try Google. But I know what I know, if you know what I mean.

For one thing, it’s more about the roving party here than it is the venue. There are resident gay bars in Tel Aviv (ground zero being EVITA), but many straight places also have independently promoted “gay nights”. So, the scene seems to bop around from place to place, depending on the night of the week. So far, I like Lima-Lima on Monday nights and Ashmoret on Fridays. (Note: those are the names of the venues, not the parties held there on those respective nights.) I’ve also checked out the Big Boys party, which happens every other Saturday in The Theatre Club. Sorry to report that I thought the music sucked. It wasn’t the fact that it was pop music and not tribal, house or any of the other styles typically played in clubs. It was more the fact that it just sucked. But I hear that three DJs rotate spinning duties, so the jury’s still out on that one.

Then there’s the bathhouses, or as they’re known here, saunas. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this kid who knows this guy who knows this girl who’s going with a guy who’s been to one before. He said while it’s cool they have bars inside so you can sip cocktails (no pun intended) in nothing but your towel, the “rooms” don’t have locking doors (just a curtain hung over a rope), so – like it or not – you can have an audience very easily if your soundtrack’s any good. Also, they’re missing the fancy touch of, ahem – clean sheets. Just cold, reused, wrestling-type mattresses. How romantic. H1N1, anyone?

The last generation had Independence Park, a cruising place so stellar it was listed in the Spartacus International Gay Guide, but the bushy hiding places were uprooted last year and replaced with klieg lights. Doesn’t really matter, since every gay in Israel opens up a profile on the “dating” site Atraf as soon as he gets his first computer anyway.

We’ve got a kickass gay ghetto beach, where the “gay soup” (straight translation: gay men floating and kibbitzing in the simmering Mediterranean) is rivaled only by the parve eye candy on the shore.

In so many ways though, the scene mirrors what I knew from New York. Britney, Beyoncé and Madonna still rule the dance floor. Muscles are in and body fat’s a sin. Bottoms worldwide, get siked: all that clichéd Israeli macho aggression means there’s a helluva lotta tops here, boys. Counterpoint: more back hair. Not a lot of guesswork as to whether someone’s cut or not. C’mon it’s Israel; we’ve got that covenant with God thing. And nobody seems to call the next day.

Gays will be gays, I guess.

Israel has recently become an attractive destination for the worldwide gay community, especially as Israel is perceived as largely extremely tolerant of its own gay community (apart from the odd blip…). It might not be on a par with other leading destinations for the gay community, which include Berlin, the acclaimed gay capital of Europe, but what with recent campaigns by El Al and the Tourism Ministry, there is a clear trend definitely geared towards bringing in more gay vacationers and, to be more precise, their holiday dollars (which apparently, indicated by the ever-growing number of gay holiday package deals, seem recession proof).

In parallel with the convention, a number of travel agents that specialize in gay vacations will be here in the Holy Land this week, checking out some of the must-see sites in Israel, meeting some of the more significant members of the gay community in Israel, and also visiting some of the more popular gay hangouts in Tel Aviv.

The convention was organized by the Tel Aviv municipality’s tourism foundation and in conjunction with the Gay and Lesbian Association and the Tel Aviv Hotel Association. While here on behalf of the IGLTA (which has more than 1,500 members representing airlines, car rental companies, hotels, travel agencies and more, and operates in 65 countries around the world) will be its Executive Director John Tanzella.

Next Sunday in Tel Aviv will see an interesting closing session of the convention, as leading branding consultants Outnow will examine the Tel Aviv brand as seen by the worldwide gay community (monitored through surveys taken in England, Germany and the US).

Of course, some within and beyond Israel’s borders will be upset about the idea of gay tourism to the Holy Land. We say the Holy Land should be open to all, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual persuasion; this part of the world has seen so much bloodshed and heartbreak and hatred, isn’t it time we just got past all that and accepted people for what they are…?

I’m hardly the most authoritative voice on the subject. I read reports from The Jerusalem Post, Ha’aretz and Ynet the past week, but I didn’t read everything, and because I don’t have a TV, I didn’t watch news reports. I don’t personally know any of the victims, nor anyone who was there that night, nor any Aguda staff members. I’ve only been to a few of Tel Aviv’s gay clubs a handful of times, the same with Hilton Beach. Truthfully, I’m not that plugged into the LGBT community here yet. I’m new.

What I can tell you is that not only am I an oleh chadash, I’m an openly gay one. At one time, I struggled tremendously to accept my homosexuality, and in 1991, I even tried to take my own life. But since coming out eighteen years ago, I’ve become a proud, esteemable man, who has participated in activism and volunteer work for my community.

I was a proud member of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus from 2003 until I made Aliyah earlier this year. I volunteered for years in the kitchen of God’s Love We Deliver, a nonprofit organization that provides hot, nutritious meals to people living with HIV and AIDS. I challenged my own limits when I volunteered for Marriage Equality New York and The Power last year, handing out flyers to Times Square tourists while proclaiming “Support Same Sex Marriage!” And here in Tel Aviv, I volunteered at the “Happening” outside the G.L.B.T. Community Center in Meir Park before the Gay Pride Parade, and then in the parade itself.

I haven’t explored much of the country yet, but I feel with certainty that Tel Aviv is the only place I could live in Israel. Much like New York, I feel comfortable and accepted being gay here. I’m not sure I would feel this in other parts of the country, such as Jerusalem.

Since the events of August 1, I felt something for the first time in my eighteen years living as an out gay man: fear for my own safety. Although it is subsiding now, the first few days after the attack I felt afraid to go to a gay bar or back to Hilton Beach. What if there was a sniper there, wanting to blow my head off? Before murder violated an LGBT safe haven last week, it never even occurred to me to be afraid of something like this. I was very surprised to feel it for the first time…in Israel, where I expect to feel more at home than anywhere else in the world, with my people the Jews.

I was never inside the Aguda, but I was outside the space once, when I dropped off some flyers for work. Now I wish I hadn’t, because I’m better able to imagine the horrors that occurred inside there.

The public discussion going on in the wake of this atrocity is the only good that can come from what happened. Was this a hate crime? Was it a terror attack? People are now exposing the real-world effects of hateful speech against LGBTs made in the Knesset by elected officials. We have a new and urgent reason to validate and equalize LGBT relationships by legalizing same sex marriage in Israel.

I wish the events at the Aguda never happened. I’m sad not just for the victims’ family and friends, but also for the youngest and newest members of our community who have new reasons to fear coming out. The violence that took place is loathsome and unacceptable. It’s everyone’s responsibility now, through activism and participation, to strengthen protection and acceptance of LGBTs throughout all of Israel and to stigmatize hate speech of any kind.

The incident has been roundly condemned by all, even by those in the religious parties who some have pointed the finger at for incitement. Education Minister Gideon Saar put it like this:

This is where we have to say out loud, in a clear voice, that Israel will continue to be a free country, where each citizen is free to choose his way of life according to his own will.

And I think the video clip below shows the true fighting spirit of the Tel Aviv gay community, a little while after the attack. Big respect to them.

Recently the Israeli Foreign Ministry has embarked on a definitely more liberal route of promoting tourism to Israel, what with its campaign (via Elal) to convince European gays to fly over to Tel Aviv for a cheap package holiday (they actually got a very good deal!) and the promotion of a US-based Israel advocacy group, StandWithUs, whose backers include conservative Americans like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, and who flew in a group of journalists and gay activists from the United States and Europe last week that climaxed (ahem!) in Tel Aviv’s Pride Parade.

The Foreign Ministry may have even gone too far recently, what with their success in offending many with their quite crass attempts at making Israel seem like a sexy place to visit. Handing out condoms in a goodie bag might just have pushed the envelope a tad wee too far, especially when your audience includes many religious Jews.

Last week’s Pride Parade also saw a new chapter in relations between the state itself and the gay community in Israel. Five couples, three sets of brides and two sets of grooms, got married in an offical ceremony (although not officially recognised by the state), with each couple – in perhaps a direct affront to the Jewish religious establishment - swearing allegiance to Tel Aviv, rather than the traditional option of Jerusalem.

If I forget thee, O Tel Aviv, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Tel Aviv above my highest joy.

This could only have happened in an open and free Tel Aviv. 

Tel Aviv’s tolerant attitude towards the gay community has thus ensured its acceptance is used as marketing material to pull the tourists in, whatever their sexual orientation. Not everybody is happy about it, but we’re a firm believer in respecting others, whatever their religious or sexual persuasion.

Welcome to Israel!

Here is a collection of great shots of the Parade from the talented Tsahi M.

And if you want to get a feel for the atmosphere during yesterday’s Pride Parade, check out the following two clips:

Tomorrow (Friday) is the main event – the annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade! As usual, it starts in Gan Meir at around noon, runs through Bograshov street, Ben Yehuda street, and Ben Gurion Avenue, and ends up at the Gordon Beach, where you can expect a big, wild party! If you find lots of skin on display, cross dressing and the waving in the air of various sex toys offensive, steer clear of these areas!

This year, to add an extra bit of pzazz to the the whole shebang – it is a 100th birthday party after all – four couples are to get married at the end of the parade by leading gay celeb and journalist Gal Uchovsky.

Here’s a quick taste of what to expect tomorrow…

And some more interesting articles out there on the web:

• Gay Israeli heartthrob Yehonatan (Jonathan) tell us all about gay Tel Aviv
• Full list of events for Gay Pride month in Israel
• Party Poopers – the Israeli Interior Minister and Chief Rabbis oppose the Parade
• Interesting article from BBC News

Peace, love, and RESPECT!

Opponents please note: Israelis really are this easily distracted!

What can I say, sometimes I’m very relieved to have been born an Englishman (just don’t mention any 1990 and 1996 semi-final penalty shoot-outs…)!

But it looks like El Al has twigged on about the potential of gay tourism, which is notoriously more open-wallet than non-gay tourists. Marketing efforts won’t be mainstream: instead El Al has teamed up with a leading gay website in Israel, encouraging members to invite European friends over, with Gay Pride month in Tel Aviv – extra special this year thanks to Tel Aviv’s centenary celebrations – the obvious attraction. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of gay tourists are expected in Tel Aviv during June, thanks to this new campaign.

“This is a disgrace. Just as El Al was sensitive to the ultra-Orthodox community and refrained from flying on Shabbat and serves kosher meals, it shouldn’t take part in this. And in general, this whole pride parade – it would be better to watch a show at the circus than this parade.”