elevationweb – A Wider Bridge

Zehorit Sorek, Mitzpe Ramon, Queer and Mizrahi, Queer and Religious

In November, we celebrate Mizrahi Heritage Month. Throughout the week we will highlight the voices of the queer Mizrahi community.

Our friend Zehorit Sorek, a religious lesbian woman, mother of two, married to Limor and Moroccan at heart is one of the founders of the Proud (LGBTQ) Religious Community in Israel. She has been a partner and friend of AWB from our early first days. Here are her words:

“In our family, the word ‘Morocco’ was treated with great respect. Throughout my childhood, we have been told that we have deep traditions and roots, but at the same time, we must be part of the Israeli society. The term ‘to be a part’ of Israeli society usually referred to the Ashkenazi hegemony. At times, the term ‘being a part’ is an excuse to erase your identity, especially for those who have immigrated from Islamic countries. ‘To be a part’ meant to be Ashkenazi.

I came out of the closet at the age of 29. It took me a while to put the words ‘lesbian’ and ‘religious’ together. Gradually the additional identities that make up my life were added to the word lesbian: ‘Lesbian mother and wife’ and a ‘religious Moroccan-Mizrahi lesbian woman.’

It was very difficult for my parents to accept my identity. When my father found out I was a lesbian, we had a difficult conversation. He claimed that it was impossible to be a lesbian and religious. When I told him that there is a religious lesbian organization, he said that they are probably all Ashkenazi because there is no such thing among Moroccans. Disconnecting from my parents was hard. I got used to celebrating holidays with a lot of people. When the first Rosh Hashanah came and I could not go to my parents, Limor, my dear wife, tried to comfort me and said: ‘We will celebrate with our two children.’ I stood in the middle of our living room and cried “‘our people is not a holiday.’

I visited Morocco in 2017 for the first time. As a souvenir, I brought miniatures of traditional Moroccan-style shoes with me. They were in the colors of the Pride flag. I framed them when I returned to Israel. I see them as a combination of my roots, my tradition, my family roots, and my lesbian identity and activism within the community.

Today the frame hangs in our living room, so everyone who enters the house knows that in this house there is a past, present, and future.”

Beit Dror, Otot, LGBTQ youth at risk, A Wider Bridge Mission

A Wider Bridge Mission at Beit Dror

052-5381648

The Israeli pop star, Anna Zak, has made this number the most famous phone number in Israel with her Mega-hit “MI Zot.” The song tells the story of a young woman who gives the wrong number to a guy. Thousands of fans called the number, hoping to solve the mystery: who will answer the phone?

It was revealed today that the number will be the hotline for “Otot,” an Israeli NGO that provides shelter to youth who have been kicked out of their homes. Among them is Beit Dror, Israel’s only shelter for LGBTQ at-risk teens between the ages of 13 and 18. We are proud supporters of Otot and Beit Dror, and we are thrilled to know that every child in Israel will now have a phone number they can call whenever they need help.

Thank you Anna Zak for supporting LGBT youth at risk!

The first comprehensive study of the LGBTQ community among Israeli Arabs found that 83% of LGBTQ Israeli Arabs are in the closet, and 72% say their families don’t support them.

These statistics are somber and devastating.
That is why we are so thrilled to support Beit el-Meem, a new organization dedicated to Arab LGBTQ people.

Beit el-Meem is an open house for all sexualities and genders that fights oppression and abuse against the Arab LGBTQ community. A support line, legal services, psychological and social support, and a social platform are among the services provided by Beit el-Meem. In this inspiring house, everyone feels safe and supported.

Although there is still much work to be done, we are so happy to celebrate this incredible accomplishment. Please join us in wishing MABROUK to the Arab LGBTQ community!

By Ethan Felson & Elisha Alexander

Israel’s government has collapsed- and the county is headed to new elections for the fifth time in three years. In this renewed period of uncertainty, Israel’s LGBTQ community has cause for particular concern. Any new coalition would likely welcome parties that oppose LGBTQ inclusion back into government, posing a clear and imminent threat to their human rights.

But amidst this trepidation, there is still much to celebrate: 30 LGBTQ leaders from the US met with their counterparts in Israel this month. The backdrop was Tel Aviv Pride – one of the largest in the world. The leaders were there for more than celebrations. They came to learn. As with past A Wider Bridge trips, North Americans travelling to Israel and Israelis travelling to North America shared strategies for building LGBTQ inclusion, fighting conversion therapy, protecting young people needing shelter, and building vibrant pride centers. Pride celebrations got their start in the US and will take place in more than 60 Israeli cities this month. Over the years, both of our countries have imported many successful approaches from one another. But one American import to Israel is less than welcome – Political Transphobia. Let’s not let it become something that unites our nations.

As leaders of groups in Israel and the US, we’ve watched with sadness as trans kids in America have been put in harm’s way through legislation making their medical care less available and prohibiting their teachers and school counselors from providing the lifesaving support they need. And it turns out that the same retrograde forces fighting trans inclusion in the US are backing similar efforts in Israel. There have aways been opposition to LGBTQ rights, including trans inclusion in both countries and around the globe. What’s new is a vastly well-funded campaign – with plenty of American backing– directed at attacking the Israeli trans community. While the fight for LGBTQ equality in Israel hasn’t been easy, historically the community hasn’t been used as a political cudgel. That’s changing – and we’re ringing the alarm bell.

Groups like the Kohelet Forum, which is largely American-funded – are trying to take their American brand of anti-trans hate to Israel. While think tanks and policy shops aren’t a new phenomenon in Israel, Kohelet has adopted the broader American model of political change-making. They’ve launched a constellation of organizations working informally together to usher in transformational policy change. With the support of Kohelet and others, the anti-trans movement has exploded in Israel.

Their orchestrated effort comes at a very unfortunate moment. Ma’avarim, Israel’s most prominent trans organization, and the entire Israeli trans community have worked tirelessly for years, building careful relationships, educating important allies – and is making tremendous advances due to an Israeli government that was willing to embrace many key goals. There are historic opportunities to implement new life-saving policies including access to healthcare, legal recognition of gender identity, and diversity in the education system. All of this is now in jeopardy. Just as these successes are coming to fruition, the anti-trans movement is using social media and other tactics to spread disinformation and false accusations such as “men in dresses raping women in bathrooms.” These fabrications are felt by many in the trans community to be like antisemitic blood libels – made-up stories that lead to fear, hatred, and even violence. The help fuel anti-trans advocacy and lobbying to advance exclusionary policies and legislation to deny Israeli transgender persons their dignity and rights.

The new anti-trans movement has several distinctive features that require new responses. Firstly, unlike the traditional opposition for LGBTQ rights that springs from religious and social conservatives, anti-trans advocacy is now often fronted by self-styled “progressive” women. They bring with them established connections within liberal circles. Secondly, the central arena of the “progressive” anti-trans campaign is both traditional and social media – drawing on existing networks with hundreds of thousands of followers, while trans community organizations have minimal presence in social media beyond the trans community. Thirdly, the funding being poured into anti-trans campaigns eclipses the budgets of LGBTQ organizations. In Israel alone, the groups waging battle against the trans community have budgets in the tens of millions with hundreds of paid staff, many of whom work on anti-trans campaigns.

None of us should sit idly by while these attacks on the trans community take place. As in other countries, this anti-trans hate movement poses an immediate threat to the safety and wellbeing of transgender and gender non-conforming persons. We cannot allow them to have their very existence denied.

But it doesn’t stop there. While transgender persons are the immediate targets of hate and violence, anti-trans campaigns have far-reaching political aims: dividing the liberal bloc of women’s, LGBTQ and minority rights, instilling hate, and turning liberal democratic societies against a newly created enemy from within. Anti-trans propaganda has proved instrumental in spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories that further undermine democratic values in society.

The eyes of the world often look to Israel on LGBTQ rights. Dana International, a trans woman from Ber Sheva won the Eurovision music contest, became an international hero, and played a role in ushering greater acceptance of the trans community.

The world will be watching after Israel’s new elections: will they continue to make progress in affording rights and protections to LGBTQ people? Or will they turn back the clock? Now more than ever, fighting the anti-trans movement must be a top priority not only for the transgender community but for LGBTQ people, feminists, and the wider progressive community in Israel- and in the United States.

Ethan Felson is the Executive Director of A Wider Bridge, organization that fights for LGBTQ inclusion, counters antisemitism, and strengthens relationships between the LGBTQ community in Israel and North America. Elisha Alexander is the founding director of Ma’avarim, Israel’s leading NGO advocating for the transgender community.

By Arthur Slepian

Background: What is Pinkwashing?

“Pinkwashing,” a combination of the words “pink” and “whitewashing,” was originally invented by critics of corporations who marketed products and services featuring the color pink or the pink ribbon associated with breast cancer. These corporations were charged with making expanded profits with very limited proceeds actually supporting breast cancer research and support, and in some cases, were charged with using materials in their products linked with heightened risk of breast cancer.

For Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, Israel’s strong record on LGBTQ rights posed a fundamental challenge to their one-sided, black-and-white narratives about Israel’s human rights record. To address this challenge, they charged Israel with “pinkwashing” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – an LGBTQ cover-up campaign serving to distract the general public from their charges of “Israeli war crimes and apartheid.”

But LGBTQ people and allies embrace the rainbow. It’s time we start seeing Israeli and Palestinian people—and Israel itself—through a lens that reveals every shade of the rainbow, warts and all. Pinkwashing charges distort the lens; calls for boycott and censorship shatter it. Now, more than ever, we must view Israel through a lens that shows the nuanced reality and illuminates the path toward a better, shared future.

A Failure of Imagination

The fundamental problem with anti-pinkwashing rhetoric is that it proceeds from imagined motives to imagined outcomes, projecting invented intentions onto Israelis and North American supporters of Israel, including many non-Jewish allies in the LGBT community.

Then it takes two unrelated topics—Israel’s LGBTQ communities and their progress in the struggle for equality and inclusion, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict—and asserts that they are inextricably intertwined. It implies that learning about and supporting the former will somehow magically dull people’s ability to think about and engage with the latter. Those who level charges of pinkwashing render LGBTQ and allied supporters of Israel invisible through caricature, pretending that we fit into a box of their own making.

“The Cover-Up” Myth: A Wider Bridge and supporters are really about something else.

Example: What appears to be an event about LGBTQ issues in Israel is really an attempt to “justify the Israeli occupation” and deflect attention from it, a ruse to “ignore the oppression of Palestinians” or “promote Israel’s human rights record.”

Many LGBTQ Israelis are people of the left. Many of the Israeli LGBTQ leaders we bring to North America hold very critical views of the Israeli government and the status quo of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even if it is not the main topic of discussion, audience members nearly always have some questions that in some way relate to the conflict—usually about the situation of Palestinian LGBTQ people in Israel, or occasionally about pinkwashing—and we and our speakers welcome that. Our guests respond with a variety of nuanced answers, which often surprise anyone expecting our speakers to parrot a single viewpoint.

We don’t select the LGBTQ activists we bring to the U.S. based on their views on Israeli- Palestinian issues. Israeli LGBTQ communities, organizations, leaders, and artists existed long before the pinkwashing debate. The Israeli government didn’t conjure them into existence as part of a PR campaign, nor did they come into being to serve as a foil for BDS supporters and the anti-occupation movement. They are their own people with their own objectives, leading real lives, often with great struggles, and there is much we can learn from their triumphs and challenges.

The “Master Hand” Myth: A Wider Bridge and other LGBTQ Israel engagement work are really just a mouthpiece of the Israeli government.

Example: This visit was a “pinkwashing tour.” The Israeli delegation was “doing the bidding of the Israeli government,” and participants were “an official delegation … chosen by the Israeli government.”

To state the obvious, A Wider Bridge and our supporters are not surrogates for the Israeli government. We are clear about our own mission and objectives. We do believe in Israel’s right, like every other country, to conduct public diplomacy, whether as an antidote to demonization, to encourage trade and tourism, or for other legitimate purposes. We take pleasure in the fact that among the multitude of things that Israel chooses to promote about itself (and there are a great many facets of Israel in which to take pride and celebrate), it devotes a small amount of attention to its LGBT community.

Where our interests converge, we are happy to cosponsor programs and work together. Yet sometimes the actions of the Israeli government on LGBTQ rights are not aligned with its rhetoric, and sometimes both the rhetoric and actions fall short of where they should be. We support many campaigns for change within Israel in this arena, including efforts to enact civil marriage. And we support our LGBTQ Israeli legal partners advocating for more compassionate policies regarding gay Palestinians who flee the West Bank and seek refuge in Israel because their lives are in imminent danger either from their families or the Palestinian police.

The “Choose Your side” Myth: It’s either Israelis… or Palestinians.

Example: “Pinkwashers aim to harness the global LGBTQ movement into supporting Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.” Exchanges with Israeli LGBTQ leaders “make invisible” and “marginalize” LGBTQ Palestinians.

The anti-pinkwashing campaign of BDS activists helps feed the conflict itself by painting everything as a zero- sum game. Israel’s record on LGBTQ rights and its supposed treatment of Palestinians are positioned in some imaginary game of “tug of war.” If you are discussing one, your agenda must be to conceal the other. Yet celebrating gay rights in Israel has never stopped anyone, including our some of our more left-wing speakers, from criticizing the policies of the Israeli government toward Palestinians. Being pro-Israel doesn’t make one anti-Palestinian, just as being pro-Palestinian doesn’t automatically make one anti-Israel. These are false choices.

What’s more, the idea that all gay people should automatically take either Israel’s or the Palestinians’ side in the conflict simply by virtue of being gay, as people on both the right and left sometimes claim, is equally misguided.

In reality, it is often “pinkwashing” critics who seek to harness the global LGBTQ community in support of the “pro-Palestinian” campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. We have never sought to cancel, boycott or silence Palestinian LGBT leaders, either in the United States or Israel. It is the pro-BDS movement that is attempting to silence and “invisibilize” Israeli LGBT leaders.

The “First Amendment” Myth: “Anti-Pinkwashing” activists are for true free speech.

Example: Those who agitate to cancel Israeli LGBTQ events are not violating the tenets of free speech. True free speech requires the airing of a diverse range of views at every event.

For many BDS advocates, only the treatment of Palestinians may be spoken of—everything else is to be silenced and boycotted. For others, no conversation with Israeli LGBT leaders about the work of Israeli LGBT NGOs should be permitted unless it addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For these critics, speech is free only when it is “politically correct,” when it involves the “proper” range of political diversity, as defined by them.

Arguments about diversity and an expanded agenda ring hollow. One single meeting can never be designed to satisfy everyone with divergent views. Must a panel of visiting religious leaders be canceled unless it includes atheists? Must a visit by the leaders of Planned Parenthood be transformed into a spirited discussion about the morals of contraception? When a delegation of visiting LGBTQ Palestinians tours the United States, should it have been criticized if no Israeli Jews were included? We do not think that should be the case.

A Better Way: Engage

Pinkwashing has become the new straw man of the pro-BDS movement. It sees pinkwashers wherever it turns its gaze, much as the American right once saw “communists” lurking under every bed. If the pinkwashers are everywhere, BDS advocates have perpetual cause for mounting the barricades, now on Israel’s LGBT front. Discourse about Israel must be all about the conflict all the time, or face charges of bad faith. If every visiting Israeli LGBT leaders’ event can be cast as a bid to divert the attention of Americans away from the conflict, if anything touched by the Israeli government automatically becomes treif, there is always a simple choice between good and evil. Simple, all too simple.

But LGBT people embrace the rainbow. It’s time we start seeing Israeli and Palestinian LGBT people—and Israel itself—through a lens that reveals every shade of the rainbow. Pinkwashing charges distort the lens; calls for boycott and censorship shatter it. Now, more than ever, we must view Israel through a lens that shows the nuanced reality and illuminates the path toward a better future.

H Alan Scott, National Coming out Day

National Coming Out Day reminds all LGBTQ folks, that they have the power to define all aspects of their identities. We are proud to see that our AWB mission alumni further National Coming Out Day’s goal of creating a wider, more visible, louder, and empowered LGBTQ community. Read the coming out reflections of 2017 AWB Pride Mission to Israel alum, H. Alan Scott:

“I can’t imagine having to be defined by just one identity. As far as coming out, I used to say that I never really had to come out. At least not just once. As a child, I was obsessed with the Golden Girls and thankfully I had amazing family support. My mom would often say to me, “When you grow up and have kids… or adopt.” Still, growing up queer was always a complex dance around questions like, “How gay will I allow myself to appear?” I clearly couldn’t be butch, but I could pass…OK, let’s be real, I could get by. But even with the privilege of years of strong support as a young adult, I always felt that I couldn’t be my authentic self without a wider queer community. I loved humor and found that focusing on my art and developing a performer personality with other LGBTQ artists helped me to be comfortable being out in public and in my career.

All that said, my real coming out story was when I came out as a Jew. I was raised Mormon and converted to Judaism at 30. It turns out that queer identity is often full of complexities and intersectionality. In many ways it was harder for me to tell people I was converting than it ever was to say I’m queer. But once I took the leap and did it, it opened up everything for me. I connected with parts of myself I previously didn’t allow to shine. I stopped doing what was expected of me, particularly professionally, and instead started focusing on what made me happy: writing, comedy, drag, and my faith, of course.

What solidified so much of that were my trips to Israel, both with A Wider Bridge, on my own and when I filmed the documentary Latter Day Jew (LatterDayJew.com). Like me, Israel can be a case of contradictions. The history, the legacies, the politics, the different types of people with different beliefs, the mixture shouldn’t work but it does. That’s me! My story shouldn’t be a Jewish story, but it is, and I’m so proud that it is.