Orthodox Jews Fights To Prevent Gays From Marching In The Israeli Day Parade!

This is picture from last year (the first year that gays were allowed to march) shows why the (very Zionist) Rav Ahron Soloveichik ZTL fought so hard against gays marching in the parade

from 1993
In this atmosphere of divisiveness over the place of gays in Jewish life, a crisis arose over the annual event that traditionally brought all Jews together: the Israel Day parade in New York City, scheduled for May 9. When Beth Simchat Torah, the gay and lesbian synagogue, requested permission, in March, to participate in the parade, an official of the American Zionist Youth Foundation, the parade sponsor, commented that "this is a very, very sensitive matter. The wrong word at this time could blow up the entire thing." A meeting of Orthodox yeshivah principals — whose students always made up at least half of the parade marchers — decided that their schools would not march if the gay synagogue marched as an identified unit. Their rationale, arrived at after consultation with Orthodox rabbinic authorities (This included Rav Ahron Soloveichik ZTL), was that the parade must not be used as a vehicle for legitimizing an unacceptable lifestyle.

Gay Marchers Spark Celebrate Israel Parade Boycott Threat

Yeshivas Agree To Allow Gays To Participate in Annual Event

An Orthodox activist has launched an effort to boycott New York’s Celebrate Israel parade for allowing gay and lesbian groups to participate, despite a reported agreement among Orthodox yeshivas not to object to the gay groups.

Avi Goldstein, a Orthodox Jew from Long Island, called for the boycott of the June 2 parade in a lengthy letter circulated in the Modern Orthodox community. In his letter, Goldstein writes that gay groups’ participation “compromised the moral integrity of the parade.”

Yet Goldstein’s effort appears doomed from the start. Goldstein reports in his own letter that a group of Jewish day schools principals agreed that they would not object to the gay organizations marching in the parade at a recent meeting attended by a representative of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York , which organizes the annual Celebrate Israel event.

A spokesperson for the JCRC would only confirm that the meeting took place. Rabbi Ellis Bloch, a staff member at the Jewish Education Project, which coordinated the meeting, would not comment on the meetings’ content.

This Celebrate Israel parade draws tens of thousands to Manhattan’s 5th Avenue each Spring. This year’s parade marks the second year in which gay Jewish organizations have marched openly. Before 2012, efforts by the gay and lesbian synagogue Congregation Beit Simchat Torah were met with a demand that the group not march with a banner that used the word “gay” or “lesbian.”

Mordechai Levovitz, co-director and founder of Jewish Queer Youth, which marched last year, said that he expects the 150 people to march with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender contingent this year. Gay and lesbian groups participating in the 2013 parade include Levovitz’s group, CBST, A Wider Bridge, and Eshel.

Though the parade is organized by the nondenominational JCRC, participation is heavily Modern Orthodox. Three quarters of the Jewish day schools that marched in 2011 were Modern Orthodox, according to a 2012 Forward report.

Gay groups’ participation didn’t cause much trouble last year. The groups marched at the end of the parade, and their participation drew little media attention. This year, however, Goldstein hopes to marshal Orthodox support and ban the gay participants.

“I hope to reach school parents, most of whom likely are unaware that Jewish Queer Youth was permitted to march in last year’s parade,” Goldstein told the Forward in an email. “Schools serve their parents and their student bodies; if concerned parents and students protest to their schools, the schools are obligated to take these protests into account.”

In his lengthy letter, Goldstein argues against gay marriage and the acceptance of homosexuality. He warns that biblical punishments threaten those who tolerate homomsexuality.
“The Torah states that homosexual behavior can lead to the spitting out of Israel’s inhabitants,” Goldstein writes. “If we participate in a parade that endorses homosexuality, how are we contributing to Israel’s welfare?”

Levovitz, for his part, said that he hadn’t been approached about the letter. The JCRC confirmed that Jewish Queer Youth and the other gay organizations were scheduled to march in the June 2 parade.
(Foward)


Which part of the Torah changed since 1993?