Some 500 people turned out Saturday night to remember the victims of a deadly shooting at a club for gay and lesbian youth in Tel Aviv three years ago.
Police have yet to find who was behind the attack, which left Nir Katz, 26, and Liz Trobishi, 17, dead and several others wounded when a gunman sprayed fire into the LGBT center on August 1, 2009.
“We all feel that something deep is disturbed and it’s impossible to continue with business as usual,” Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz, himself gay, told the crowd gathered for the memorial at Tel Aviv’s Meir Park. “We need to take care of homophobia … If in 2012, we still can’t marry or create a family the way we choose, then there is no justice in Israel.”
A number of other public figures were at the ceremony, including former foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, who was booed and heckled during his speech.
While Tel Aviv is considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, and the Israel Defense Forces one of the more gay-friendly armies, many say Israeli society as a whole still harbors homophobic sentiments.
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That fact was borne out in startling fashion the night of the shooting.
“The problem is not with the gay community but with Israeli society,” Livni said.
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