Thousands celebrate as Ra'anana holds first Pride parade

The city of Ra’anana, a sleepy bedroom community north of Tel Aviv, has held its first-ever Pride parade.

Some 2,300 people took part in the parade through the city’s main thoroughfare, according to local news site Mynet.

The police say seven people were arrested on suspicion of planning to disturb the event. Several people held a small rally against the parade outside a local synagogue, Mynet reports.

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Eitan Ginzburg, a former Ra’anana mayor who is now a Blue and White MK says on Twitter that the parade shows “how this city is really amazing and made up of many communities and everyone has a place.”

In 2012, a Pride parade scheduled in the town was canceled after the city said some locals were not comfortable with it.

“It’s exciting to see thousands celebrating tolerance and equality,” Blue and White MK Idan Roll says in a statement. “The parade is more proof of liberalism victory over extremism.”

On Friday, some 250,000 people celebrated in Tel Aviv’s Pride Parade.