jerusalem | An international gay pride celebration in Jerusalem this August has been postponed for a year.
WorldPride 2005 was to be a 10-day international festival culminating in a parade celebrating the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It attracted the ire of Jewish, Christian and Muslim conservatives in Israel and around the world, who argued that it would defile the holy city.
The festival was put on hold because organizers didn’t want it to coincide with Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which was recently rescheduled to begin in August. Jerusalem instead is slated to host the festival the following year, from Aug. 6 to 12, 2006.
Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the LGBT community center, Jerusalem Open House, was in San Francisco this week when the decision was announced.
He said that postponing the festival should not be seen as either support or lack thereof of the disengagement.
“There is broad understanding in Israel that this will be quite a dramatic period,” he said. “And while not all WorldPride events will be a celebration, many of them are happy and celebratory. Regardless of what people think about the disengagement, it would be highly inappropriate and insensitive to go on with our plans. To do so would be perceived as totally disengaged from the reality around us.”
They also realized that most of Jerusalem’s police force would be in Gaza for the evacuation.
The mission planned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation for leaders of the LGBT community has been postponed to coincide with next year’s festival.
But other missions are going ahead anyway. San Francisco’s queer-identified Congregation Shaar Zahav was planning a synagogue mission to coincide with WorldPride, and that mission is still going forward.
A meeting is planned for 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, at the synagogue for trip participants to discuss their concerns, but Rabbi Camille Angel said, “We definitely think it is always a good time to travel to Israel and deepen our connection.”
The United Jewish Communities’ Pride in Israel mission, also aimed at the gay and lesbian community, was set for early August. It has no formal ties to WorldPride, though the trip had been scheduled so participants could stay in Jerusalem for a few extra days to join the festival.
The mission will go on as planned.
“No doubt there will be a shift, as those who focus their attention on WorldPride may want to wait until next year to come, but what’s remarkable is that people keep on joining the mission,” said Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the gay Orthodox rabbi-in-residence for the UJC tour.
Rescheduling the WorldPride festival will be a logistical nightmare. The program included an academic conference co-sponsored by Yale University, an international film festival and an interfaith conference that had drawn commitments from clergy members from around the world.
This June, Jerusalem will host a smaller, local gay pride parade, as it has for the past few years.
“Gay pride will be in Jerusalem,” said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, senior rabbi at New York City’s gay and lesbian shul, Beth Simchat Torah, and a national co-chair of WorldPride.
“We are not caving in to any kind of right-wing pressure. We are not capitulating. Jerusalem belongs to all of us,” she continued. “It belongs to the gay and lesbian world as much as to anyone else. We will not let right-wing religious bigots shut us down.”
There’s some irony in the need to reschedule, Kleinbaum said. At first, festival organizers had considered starting WorldPride in mid-August, but realized that would be just before Tisha B’Av, the day Jews mourn many disasters they have endured throughout history.
“Out of respect for Jewish religious sensitivities — including my own — we did not want to start it then,” Kleinbaum said. Instead, the lesbian and gay group decided to wait until late August, when the calendar begins a period of consolation that precedes the High Holy Days.
The Israeli government originally had scheduled the Gaza pullout to begin July 25. This year, though, that’s the 17th of Tammuz, a fast day that punctuates the 30-day mourning period leading to Tisha B’Av.
“Why the Israelis did not consult a Jewish calendar, I cannot even begin to speculate,” Kleinbaum said.