My support for Israel is not ‘pink-washing’ [View all]

[King_David]

by jayson littman

Growing up as a black-hat Orthodox Jew, I never celebrated Israel in a Zionistic fashion. Zionism was a secular concept, sort of like Thanksgiving.

I studied in yeshiva in Jerusalem after high school but didn’t connect to Israel until the summer of 2009 — my first summer in Israel as a gay Jew. I felt at home in a country that embraced both my gay and Jewish identities (in Tel Aviv at least). When I started organizing gay Jewish parties in New York City (think Matzo Ball, but for gay Jews), many attendees asked me to push Birthright to organize an LGBT-themed trip. I was surprised to find that Israel Experience, a provider for Taglit-Birthright trips, was already organizing such trips. I staffed my first gay Birthright trip in January 2011 and saw how this experience changed the lives of LGBT Jews.

When the Jewish National Fund reached out to me in 2011 to create the first LGBT group under the auspices of a major Jewish organization, I looked at this as a shining moment of LGBT inclusion in the mainstream Jewish community. Our initial fundraising event for Out@JNF attracted more than 150 attendees, with the proceeds providing two scholarships for LGBT students at the JNF-funded Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. At the event there were anti-Israel activists with big poster boards that read, “JNF: Just Not Fabulous.” While I chuckled at their creativity, I felt a bit annoyed that my gay community was protesting Israel.

This past summer I led another LGBT Birthright trip, followed shortly by a JNFuture Leadership Institute Mission, designed to showcase JNF projects in Israel. (It’s not just planting trees, though we did plant one!) This would be my first time in Israel as a self-identified “activist” for Israel. I was certainly excited.


http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/66952/my-support-for-israel-is-not-pink-washing/