Spurned after October 7, American LGBTQ+ Jews find healing in Tel Aviv Pride Week
Anti-Israel sentiments in the global queer community have alienated many, pushing them to develop their Jewish identities instead
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
For Yoanna Chaya Kollin, like many of her LGBTQ+ peers, Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, was a turning point in her relationship with a community that had previously embraced her.
“At the time, I was living in the LGBTQ+ dormitories in my university, and suddenly, I was canceled by everyone in the building,” the Los Angeles native recalled. “I couldn’t go to the LGBTQ+ student center anymore because they knew that I was supportive of Israel, while everyone else was anti-Israel.”
Kollin said she eventually left the university and spent an “incredibly tough” period learning to redefine herself more as a Zionist and less as a member of the community she felt had turned on her.
“I’ve become more vocal, and now, I just want to be known as that transgender Zionist girl. Israel is the only place Jewish transgender people can live without worrying that our rights are going to be taken away.”
Kollin’s story mirrored that of many participants on the Jewish Federations of North America’s LGBTQ+ Pride Mission to Israel, visiting during the Tel Aviv Pride Week that was to culminate with the pride parade scheduled for Friday, June 13.
Nearly 100 Jewish LGBTQ+ leaders from 26 communities across North America were visiting Israel to show solidarity and connect with the LGBTQ+ community here in Israel. Most shared stories of being ostracized by their LGBTQ+ communities after the October 7 terror attack, and of reconnecting with their Jewish identities as a new source of pride.
“This mission came to be because we all need an experience where we could fully embody every part of our identity, without explanation and without fear,” said Nate Looney, one of the trip’s organizers and director of Community Safety and Belonging at Jewish Federations of North America’s Center for Jewish Belonging.
“Here we stood at the Western Wall as gay men, lesbians, transgender and nonbinary folk, and felt those ancient stones connecting us with generations of Jewish resilience. Here we can walk through Tel Aviv and see the rainbow flag flying alongside the Star of David without having to choose between them.”
Unity in alienation
At a rooftop pool party at one of Tel Aviv’s ritziest hotels Thursday night, participants described rediscovering Judaism as their identities in the LGBTQ+ community fell apart virtually overnight.
“Most people have heard of the surge in Jewish identity that many Jewish Americans have experienced since October 7, with more people leaning into their Jewish identities, attending synagogue, and sending their children to Jewish day schools,” said Jeff Schoenfeld, a prominent Federations leader and one of the mission’s organizers. “But few people realize that the surge is actually most pronounced in the LGBTQ+ community. Many are essentially being shunned from their former progressive communities, and they’re increasingly finding new homes in their Jewish spaces.”
For many, the trip was a rare moment when Jewish identity and sexual identity could coexist in harmony.
Max Tabak, a Philadelphia resident and activist for local Jewish and LGBTQ+ causes, called the trip one of the most emotional weeks of his life. “After October 7, I got canceled by extremists in my own queer community, where I have been running queer parties for years. At the same time, I started feeling more like a Jew. Not Jewish, but a Jew, a part of our nation. And being in Israel, meeting with the proud leaders here, has been such a powerful experience of unity,” he said.
Gili Roman, an Israeli whose sister Yarden Roman-Gat was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Be’eri and freed 54 days later in the first ceasefire deal, noted a similar experience after touring LGBTQ+ communities in the US.
“What I found was that LGBTQ+ communities there weren’t interested in our stories and our pain,” Roman said. “They wouldn’t accept me or acknowledge the threats that we face. Meanwhile, the Jewish communities fully embraced me, opening their hearts, their homes, their synagogues, and their communities. Now, being here in Israel, I don’t have to choose. I can be cared for as a gay person, as a Jewish person, and as an Israeli. In that sense, it feels very holistic.”
“Coming to Israel for this trip has been therapeutic and eye-opening,” said Dillon Perez of New York. “I feel very safe here, a place where I can be myself and share my opinions with people I trust. It’s really empowering to see what queer people in Israel are doing to fight for their rights and to protect our rights worldwide.”
Calling out hypocrisy
Participants said they struggled with the dissonance of being spurned by LGBTQ+ communities, built on values of tolerance, inclusiveness, respect, and diversity, in favor of Hamas, a terrorist entity hell-bent on the exact opposite.
“I’m still trying to understand why anyone in the community would be supporting them,” said Gordy Nathan, a California resident. “What they do is, they never say the word Hamas. They can’t talk about anything related to October 7. But they are all about ‘Free Free Palestine.’ When I hear that, it sounds like ‘Heil Hitler’ — pure antisemitism.”
“When I hear my own fellow queer people chanting ‘From the river to the sea,’ I’m flabbergasted,” Tabak added. “Do you understand that you, as a queer person, would not last five minutes in Gaza? You’d be thrown off a building, murdered, or whatever else they do. Don’t you understand what they did on October 7?”
In the face of such hypocrisy, participants agreed that they have to band together and form stronger communities to support LGBTQ+ Jews.
“Everyone here has their own experiences and stories, but when it comes down to it, we’re all going through the same thing,” Tabak said. “There’s no more room for us versus them. We all feel like we are targets, and if we don’t come together and unite, we’re going to suffer alone.”
For more on this topic, please check out this podcast:
The Times of Israel Community.