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Posted on 07/01/2005 5:49:28 AM PDT by Alouette
The elevator door in Jerusalem's City Hall opens on the ground floor and inside stands Mayor Uri Lupolianski with his bodyguard. Waiting for the elevator is Sa'ar Netanel, the forthrightly gay city councilman and nemesis of the haredi mayor.
Grinning in full gloat, Netanel – dressed in casual-to-sloppy Jerusalem style, with shirt tails hanging over his loose jeans – gets in and asks the mayor provocatively, "What, don't I get a mazal tov [congratulations]?"
Lupolianski – short, well-tailored, every bit the confident mayor – responds in kind. "Mazal tov for what?" he quips. "Did you just have a son? When it's something serious, I'll congratulate you." Netanel laughs.
It's Monday afternoon, a day after a Jerusalem court overturned Lupolianski's decision to ban the fourth annual Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, scheduled to depart Thursday – as originally planned – from Zion Square. The court ordered Lupolianski to pay NIS 30,000 out of his own pocket to Open House, the local gay community center that appealed the ban, to cover half its court costs. The municipality will pay Open House the other half.
"Looks like my battles cost you NIS 30,000 this time," Netanel teases the mayor.
"Your battles," Lupolianski replies dismissively, and he and his bodyguard hustle out of the elevator to a waiting car.
This is a great day, a great week, for Netanel and the Jerusalem gay community – whose relations with the city have gone together like oil and water. Not only are they in constant conflict with the local haredim and the national religious, but recently, in the battle they lost to stage the WorldPride international gay festival in the capital next month, they found themselves up against a coalition of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders who were unanimous in their stance on this particular issue.
Buoyed by this victory, Lupolianski tried to put an end to the local annual gay pride parade, which attracts a few thousand homosexuals – many of whom come dressed in what could be considered outrageous get-ups – along with a handful of Kach rabble-rousers who come to chant insults. The parade also results in pashkovilim, or public denunciations, being plastered on the walls of the city's haredi neighborhoods, cursing this "abomination" in the streets of the holy city and warning the faithful to keep their distance lest they become "infected."
"The gay pride parades have turned out to be processions of lewd sexuality lacking any civilized character, in which some of the participants walk around in provocative dress that exposes their private parts, all for the purpose of causing a cheap, wild sexual sensation," argued Hanan Doron, the lawyer hired to defend the municipality against Open House's appeal. City Attorney Yossi Havilio refused to handle the case, saying the city's position was indefensible.
Judge Moussia Arad agreed, ruling that a community cannot be denied its right to free expression merely because some members of the public-at-large are offended by it.
Among the Jerusalem gay community, Netanel, 34, is the lightning rod for anti-gay antagonism, which comes mainly from the haredim. Elected to the council as number two on the Meretz list two years ago, his is the most public, defiant face of the city's gay community. And if there were any local haredim who weren't familiar with that face, they were introduced to it during the protests over last year's Gay Pride Parade.
"I was the star of their pashkovilim," Netanel says in a lengthy interview in his City Hall office between endless phone calls. "A huge picture of me was printed on the posters, along with my home phone number, my office phone number, and even my mother's phone number. Even now, hardly a day goes by without me getting an SMS threatening me or calling me names. But the worst was that they called my mother, who's in her 70s, and said obscene things to her and told her they'd kill me. Finally she had to change her phone number."
For a while Netanel needed police protection: Once, while driving, he received a threatening call from someone who told him he could see which street the councilman was traveling on.
CHAIN-SMOKING Marlboros in an office with a gay rainbow flag on the wall, a Peace Now banner in a cardboard box, and a desk buried under a blizzard of documents, Netanel says he is a veteran of political battles against the city's haredim.
Joining the local Meretz branch at age 16 and rising in the ranks, he became one of the lead organizers of the 1990s' protest convoys to keep Bar-Ilan Street open on Shabbat – protests that attracted stone-throwing from young haredim. "I once got hit by a stone in a very delicate place," Netanel recalls. "I was seeing stars."
Coming out of the closet in his early 20s, Netanel became chairman of the Hebrew University's gay student association, The Other Tenth. Later, he managed the city's first gay bar, the defunct "Lulu," and now is co-owner of Lulu's successor, "Shushan." The bar, which attracts not only out-of-the-closet secular gays but also closeted religious and Palestinian ones, was hit by a minor arsonous attack during Passover, at the height of the WorldPride controversy. No one was caught.
At City Hall, however, Netanel says he has gotten no unfriendly treatment from any of the many haredim going in and out of the corridors, and in fact gets along very well with those he works with. "They shake my hand, they invite me to come have dinner with their families," he says.
"They've gotten to know me, so their attitude is, 'We'll accept Sa'ar. He's sick, but he's nice, he's intelligent.'"
On the third floor of City Hall's Building Four, tolerance between gays and haredim is pretty much a practical necessity: Netanel's office is on the other side of a narrow hallway from the offices of councilmen from United Torah Judaism. "We're in and out of each other's offices all the time. Come on, I'll introduce you to them," he says, leading the way into a room where a few UJT men are talking.
"This gentleman is a relatively intelligent dos," says Netanel, fearlessly using the pejorative for Orthodox Jew in introducing Councilman Shlomo Rozenshtien. "Dosson," Rozenshtien corrects him, using an even worse name for the religious.
Introducing himself as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he says he is proud it voted against funding the Gay Pride Parade. He and an aide then razz Netanel about not wanting to be left alone in a room with him. Thus, at the outset of the meeting, the air has been cleared.
Indicating Rozenshtien, Netanel says, "He's always coming around to shnorrer cigarettes from me."
"Not anymore – I switched brands," says Rozenshtien, showing his pack of Parliament Longs.
"Parliament Longs? You know who smokes those?" says Netanel.
"He's going to tell us the lesbians," says one of the UJT men.
"No, the queens," says Netanel.
"Here we go," says Rozenshtien.
"Why can't you at least smoke a real man's cigarette?" says Netanel, and Rozenshtien looks at me and says, "Now you understand why the Jerusalem Municipality is against the Gay Pride Parade?"
After Netanel returns to his office, Rozenshtien, turning serious, says of the parade, "Jerusalem is not the place for this. I would have expected [the gay community to understand that this is a different, special, holy city."
Noting that in their work, he and Netanel do all sorts of collegial favors for each other, Rozenshtien says, "We have very serious ideological disputes, but the fact that we work next door to each other and get along personally loosens the tension from those disputes."
Acknowledging that he never expected to have such a "harmonious" working relationship with a gay Meretz councilman down the hall, the haredi lawmaker suggests that "politicians at the national level could learn from our example that ideological battles can be fought respectfully."
The verbal "ping-pong" he plays with the haredim down the hall is the same kind he plays in the Council chamber with Lupolianski, says Netanel, suggesting that the mayor is outclassed.
"One time I brought in a point of order about how there were hardly any women getting appointed to the boards of city-owned companies – that the appointees were all men. And Lupolianski said, 'I would have thought you'd like that.' And I said, 'Seeing the kind of men you associate with, I prefer women.'"
Cheerful banter aside, Netanel runs Lupolianski down for his "ignorance," "homophobia" and "fanaticism." He interprets this week's court verdict as a message to the mayor "not to act like thug."
Still, he says he finds "Lupo" – as many people around City Hall refer to the mayor – to be a "likable man, and I think he likes me, too." On his way to a committee meeting, Netanel stops in to say hello to the Shas faction. With a deadpan expression, Shas Councilman Shmuel Yitzhaki asks him, "Why didn't you bring me an invitation, I want to be there, too."
Yitzhaki is referring to the ceremony Netanel will be hosting in City Hall's auditorium to mark the start of Gay Pride Month. One of Yitzhaki's aides says of his boss, "He wants to be the guest of honor on the dais."
With the committee about to convene, Netanel doesn't have time for further verbal fencing.
"Listen, you want an invitation, I'll bring you one," he shrugs, heading off down the hall.
Seconds later, a ripple of laughter can be heard from the huddle of Shasniks.
Crossing Safra Square, Netanel is called to by an elderly haredi councilman, Ya'acov Shneur. Shneur comes over and speaks his piece about the Gay Pride Parade. "Jews are against it; Muslims, Christians, secular people are against it. King David said..."
"You know about King David and Jonathan?" Netanel asks with mischief in his voice.
"Are you being interviewed or am I?" Shneur scolds, then continues, "We do not want to interfere in people's personal lives..."
"King David was a faygele," Netanel says.
"...But such a display violates the sanctity of the city," Schneur continues stoically, "it offends people, and this must be opposed, but – and I want to stress this – without the use of violence." Asked his personal opinion of Netanel, Schneur quotes from the Torah: "Wipe out the sin, not the sinner."
Netanel says Jerusalem is a hard city to change. "The intolerance and fanaticism are so strong, so entrenched, and when you're gay, secular, left-wing and in the opposition, it can get frustrating," he notes.
Yet he considers his own dissident but sociable presence at City Hall to be progress in itself. "I am the gay community's voice, and people here have to listen to us. And because of my personality, maybe their image of homosexuals is changed a little for the better," he says.
Real victories, though, are rare for the gay community, and the verdict against Jerusalem's haredi mayor and in favor of the Gay Pride Parade was without doubt one of them. So today, Netanel and his core constituency will be celebrating in the streets of the city.
Cheerful banter aside, Netanel runs Lupolianski down for his "ignorance," "homophobia" and "fanaticism."
Isn't this queer the very epitome of "tolerance" "diversity" and "love"?
What does "dosson" mean? You can euphemize it if it's not for polite ears.
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1 Kings 15:12-13
It is an Israeli derogatory slang term for "Orthodox Jew" comparable to "Pape" for Catholic, "christer" for Christian or the well known N-word for African-American.
Aren't these gays loving, tolerant folks!
Is "faygele" a real Yiddish or Hebrew word, or was it adapted from "fag?" Or could it have been the other way around?
I'm not sure whether the person who attacked the parade was a "Jewish extremist," a mentally ill person, or a provocateur dressed in religious garb and paid to create a disruption.
Was alleged to be in other reports.
If Orthodox Jews are all extremists, why was there only one single attacker? Why didn't a mob attack the parade?
My son was part of the counter demonstration. I spoke to him last night and he told me that there was a very heavy police cordon separating the parade and the protestors, and that everyone in his group had been instructed to stand silently and pray. He said the attacker did not come from his group, and that there was no way his group could have approached the parade.
I support the Gay Pride in Jerusalem parade -- they should march in the Mosque on the Rock.
Oy vey, as they say! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that killed the prophets, turn back to the Lord thy God!
And again I say, so what? The obsession with queers on FR continues to puzzle me.
..................
Its yiddish. Actually means "little birdy", which I think comes to be slang for homosexual as in the way a little bird flitters and flutters from tree to tree.
Thanks - it looked Yiddish, but since Hebrew's the national language, I thought it might be that. Maybe someday I'll check on the etymology of "fag" for homosexual. It's so odd to read books from the 30's, talking about being a fag, smoking a fag, eating a faggot, and realize from the context they're talking about students, cigarettes & sausages.
What amazes me is that in the face of the truth of the "gay" agenda trying to dominate the culture, people like you obsess about those who have legitimate concerns.
Why are you on FR anyway? To yip about and bite the ankles of real conservatives?
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
Please read comment 8 as well as the article. If indeed the attacker was either a terrorist or a paid provocateur, I hope this information is made public ASAP.
It is shameful that homosexuals (ok, not all, but enough) want to aggravate an already dangerous situation in Israel. It's shameful that homosexuals, instead of peacefully living their lives, or better yet, seeking help which is available so they can leave the "gay" life behind, want to disrupt society. They will never be satisfied with the rest of us until we actually join their parade.
And that we will never do.
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I wonder sometimes myself. I always thought conservatives favored limited government and maximizing personal responsibility and liberty. But it turns out that many conservatives actually favor a nanny state that constantly lectures its citizens and inspects their lives for moral rectitude. Go know.
The "disengagement" policy is being used as a club to demonize all politically conservative Israelis and smear them as "extremists" while the gay agenda incites and demonizes the Orthodox as "bigots" and "intolerant."
Dressing up in the garb of a religious Jew and then committing attacks is a tactic that has been successfully used by Israeli leftists in the past. It is the same thing as liberals in the U.S. who commit "hate crimes" against themselves for media attention.
Conservatives don't want homosexuals, NAMBLA supporters (but I repeat myself), the ACLU, and those who hate God making the rules.
Tolerance is one thing, but servile surrender to the above is not conservative.
And you are not conservative in any way, shape or form. Afer reading some of your comments here, I checked your "in forum" comments, and your youthful pride in your own conceit is quite wonderful.
I am not at all surprised. The northwest was a hotbed of self-created "hate crimes" for quite some time.
I hope the truth is revealed soon in this case.
Good observation! Paid to create a disturbance, hmmmmmmm imagine a group using such tactics! Not hard at all to imagine, with this group. I have often wondered if that group from Kansas, here in the US, that is getting all the press, is indeed the same! I have never ever met a Christian who shares their views.
Fred Phelps is either a madman or a paid agent provocateur. I suppose he could be both. The world is rife with madmen, and they aren't all wildeyed with crazy hair, mumbling to themselves. Some of them appear quite civilized.
I would say that real conservatives don't want any rules that regulate private or personal behavior at all. That way queers can do what they want in peace and you can do whatever it is you do when you are not lecturing us.
And you are not conservative in any way, shape or form. Afer reading some of your comments here, I checked your "in forum" comments, and your youthful pride in your own conceit is quite wonderful.
I think you're overstepping your bounds again. You don't get to decide on behalf of society or God what is correct. And you don't get to decided who is and who is not a conservative. Talk about arrogance. You may, of course, state your opinions, just I can state mine. And here's my opinion -- you are a schmuck.
Like indoctrinating your children using your taxpayer money and performing their perversions in your face?
I don't give a rip what they do to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom. But when it's in my face and my money is paying for it, I damn well have a say in what they do.
I don't give a rip what they do to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom. But when it's in my face and my money is paying for it, I damn well have a say in what they do.
Now this is actually a good point, though this particular article actually deals with a parade in Israel and I don't pay Israel any taxes (unless you count those bonds which I only occasionally cash in).
But even here, people have the right to assemble and express their opinions, even if we don't like their opinion. And if you don't like the opinion, well, don't go to the parade.
As far as money being paid to them, I have yet to see anything supporting that. As far as I understand (though I could be wrong), the public money goes to police, sanitation and other normal things that the public provides for parades of any sort. That's hardly equivalent to funding the parade itself, otherwise you could claim that the public paid for the Nazis to march in Skokie, or for the Klan to march in DC. If you know of public funds being directly spent to proselytize gay lifestyles, I'd be interested to hear about that.
Public schools.
You suffer from an overestimation of your own brilliance as well as the chronic hypocracy of those who say there are no absolute morals, yet at the same time condemn those of us who assert there are.
If you really believed there is no absolute morality you would say "live and let live" to social conservatism as well as those who promote immorality.
But no - you laud homosexuality and those who promote it, and condemn those who promote the traditional morality that is espoused by every monotheist religion in the history of the world.
You are a living example of the hypocracy that the left lives by. You claim that if WE would shut up, "queers" [your word] would live in peace. This is an abominable lie. Proof of which is this - the more laws are enacted to force the "acceptance" of homosexual behavior, the more in-your-face is their behavior.
I don't suppose you'd like to address the homosexual indoctrination of children in schools, would you? How would a so-called libertarian such as yourself (I suppose that's what you like to fancy yourself) support GLSEN and other like groups that teach children in public schools how to perform same sex sodomy? This is not a rhetorical questions.
I assume that when you state: "That way queers can do what they want in peace and you can do whatever it is you do when you are not lecturing us." you must also mean that "queers doing what they want in peace" is doing what they want in our inns, our public streets, our school rooms, and our parks? Or do you mean only in the privacy of their own houses?
BTW, your rhetoric has an odor of someone who watched too much "Beavis and Butthead", in recent adolescence.
Good to see you too!
I need someone to organize my office. Unfortunately I am a rotten organizer of time and space. Always behind in my list of things to do.
I don't know the meaning of the word boredom, and haven't for many, many years.
LOL well you seem to me to be someone who does a fine job, organized or not!
Good point. It's a fine line between teaching tolerance and advocacy.
If you only knew.
You suffer from an overestimation of your own brilliance as well as the chronic hypocracy of those who say there are no absolute morals, yet at the same time condemn those of us who assert there are.
I never claimed to be brilliant -- I simply claimed that you are a schmuck. Frankly, it doesn't take a genius to see that.
If you really believed there is no absolute morality you would say "live and let live" to social conservatism as well as those who promote immorality.
Regarding social conservatives, I do say live and let live. Go ahead, you can say whatever you want. I simply said you don't get to speak for me, society or God.
But no - you laud homosexuality and those who promote it, and condemn those who promote the traditional morality that is espoused by every monotheist religion in the history of the world.
Hey, I never lauded homosexuality. I personally don't see the appeal of homosexual sex, but if others do, have at it. I've got better things to do than worry about who's doing who.
You are a living example of the hypocracy that the left lives by. You claim that if WE would shut up, "queers" [your word] would live in peace. This is an abominable lie. Proof of which is this - the more laws are enacted to force the "acceptance" of homosexual behavior, the more in-your-face is their behavior.
Or maybe it's the other way around -- the more they advocate, the more laws get passed. But the again, it seems to me that the momentum is really the other way. Every single defense of marriage amendment has passed.
I don't suppose you'd like to address the homosexual indoctrination of children in schools, would you? How would a so-called libertarian such as yourself (I suppose that's what you like to fancy yourself) support GLSEN and other like groups that teach children in public schools how to perform same sex sodomy? This is not a rhetorical questions.
To be honest, I don't know much about it, so there's not much I can add to this enlightening conversation on this topic. I'd say it's a fine line between between advocacy and tolerance. In fact, I did say that to Alouette. I'd also say it's important to teach public health without advocacy. But that's about all I can add on this.
I assume that when you state: "That way queers can do what they want in peace and you can do whatever it is you do when you are not lecturing us." you must also mean that "queers doing what they want in peace" is doing what they want in our inns, our public streets, our school rooms, and our parks? Or do you mean only in the privacy of their own houses?
Public sex, if that's what you mean, is illegal whether it is homo and hetero. But if you mean can they walk in the street, sit on a park bench or go to school, I think that's still allowed in this country.
BTW, your rhetoric has an odor of someone who watched too much "Beavis and Butthead", in recent adolescence.
I never really like Beavis and Butthead. I was always much more of a "Ren and Stimpy" fan.
Oh, and I still think you are a schmuck.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Apparently you've never had the misfortune of actually witnessing a "Gay Pride" parade. You would know what he was referring to if you had. In fact, you might have figured this all out if you had simply read the article attached to this thread more carefully:
"The gay pride parades have turned out to be processions of lewd sexuality lacking any civilized character, in which some of the participants walk around in provocative dress that exposes their private parts, all for the purpose of causing a cheap, wild sexual sensation," argued Hanan Doron, the lawyer hired to defend the municipality against Open House's appeal.Yes, we are all entitled to our "opinions." If you had even half a clue you would understand that social conservatives have no desire to pry into anyone's private life. Sodomy laws when they were enacted were seldom enforced for that very reason.
Sounds like Mardi Gras. Or a Britney Spears concert. The outrage strikes a little hollow.
Yes, we are all entitled to our "opinions." If you had even half a clue you would understand that social conservatives have no desire to pry into anyone's private life.
I wish that were true. If I cared enough, I would even provide some links on FR that contradict that statement.
Sodomy laws when they were enacted were seldom enforced for that very reason.
They were seldom enforced because it was hard to catch people in the act, not because of concern for privacy. If legislators cared about privacy, why were they passed in the first place?
Your blase attitude of superiority combined with your admission that you know very little about the homosexual agenda are an odd juxtaposition.
If you care to educate yourself before posting (doubtful) you would have noticed the plethora of articles about the "gay" agenda on FR. So, you either are too lazy to read, and yet want to spout your ignorant two cents, or you actually support the "gay" agenda and pretend ignorance of it.
Or maybe you drink too much Natty Boh and your thinking is just plain fuzzy.
And thus is human nature. Three major faiths can't agree on whether or not it's wrong to walk into a pizza shop wrapped in dynamite or bulldoze someone's home but hey let's not let gay people have a parade!
He won.
He should gloat.
Do "three major faiths" (or seven or eight lesser faiths) have to agree on something in order to determine if it is right or wrong?
G-D has said what is right and what is wrong.
"And the people of Sodom were evil and sinned exceedingly against the Lord. (Genesis 13:13)
I think you miss the point. It's what Christians refer to as straining at a gnat and swallowing the camel whole. I simply find it odd that people, especially religious people, can work together to prevent a gay parade but not to stop bloodshed.
Have you ever seen a movie?
"Gloating" is what the bad guy does just before the good guys come in and cap his @$$.
Apples & oranges.
"Working together" will not stop the bloodshed. Only defeating the shedders of blood will stop the bloodshed.
What one does in the privacy of his or her own bedroom is his or her business.
When he or she demand that I MORE than accept it...that I MUST embrace it....and then parade it in front of my face, then we have a serious f**king problem.
I despise such slime more than words can express.
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