Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz pictured on August 13, 2021. (Photo/JTA-Avshalom Sassoni-Flash90) News Israel Israel will now let gay men donate blood Facebook Twitter Email SMS WhatsApp Share By Ben Sales, JTA | August 23, 2021 Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area. Israel has ended a restriction on blood donation that effectively prohibited gay men from donating blood. Until now, Israel had prohibited any man who had had same-sex relations over the past 12 months from giving blood. Now, the question’s wording will be changed to asking whether prospective donors have had “high risk sexual relations with a new partner or partners” during the past three months, according to the Associated Press. The change follows similar ones in the United States last year and in the United Kingdom earlier this year. It was spearheaded by Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who is the first gay man in the position. “There is no difference between blood and blood,” Horowitz wrote on Facebook Thursday. “Discrimination against gay men in blood donation is over. It was a relic of a stereotype that belongs to history.” Ben Sales Ben Sales is news editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. JTA Content distributed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service. Also On J. Books Her debut novel is about a Jewish girl in Manitoba (just like she was) Politics A lawyer, a poultry prince and a billboard queen walk into a recall election Bay Area Jewish orgs scramble to assist Afghan refugees arriving in Bay Area Tech Anti-Defamation League calls on Twitter to remove Taliban accounts Subscribe to our Newsletter I would like to receive the following newsletters: Weekday J From Our Sponsors (helps fund our journalism) Your Sunday J Holiday Bytes