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"orthodox" gay, "drag queen" |
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Just shy of midnight, Shahar Hadar trades his knitted white yarmulke for a wavy blond wig and a pink velvet dress.
Cheers greet him in a packed gay bar as he starts to swivel to a Hebrew
pop song, his shiny red lips mouthing lyrics that mean more to him than
the audience knows: "With God's help you'll have the strength / To
overcome and give your all."
It has been a long and agonizing metamorphosis for Hadar, 34, from
being a conflicted "Orthodox" Jew to a proud "religious" gay man - and drag
queen. Most "Orthodox" Jewish gay men, like those in other conservative
religious communities around the world, are compelled to make a devil's
bargain: marry a woman to remain in their tight-knit religious
community, or abandon their family, community and religion to live
openly gay lives.
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On Tisha Bav |
But while Orthodox Judaism ?generally? condemns homosexuality, there is a
growing group of devout-gay Jews in Israel unwilling to abandon their
faith
except those avrais that suit them and demanding a place in the religious community.
"As much as I fled it, the "heavens" made it clear to me that that's who I
am," Hadar said. He is marching Thursday - out of costume - in
Jerusalem's annual gay pride parade.
Hadar, a telemarketer by day, has taken the gay "Orthodox" struggle from
the synagogue to the stage, beginning to perform as one of Israel's few
"religious" drag queens. His drag persona is that of a rebbetzin, a female
rabbinic advisor - a wholesome guise that stands out among the
sarcastic and raunchy cast of characters on Israel's drag queen circuit.
"She blesses, she loves everyone," said Hadar of his alter-ego,
Rebbetzin Malka Falsche. The stage name is a playful take on a Hebrew
word meaning "queen" and Hebrew slang for "fake." Her philosophy, and
Hadar's, draws from the teachings of the Breslov Hasidic
except the parts that the biggest misnaged in the world agrees with stream of
ultra-Orthodox Judaism: embrace life's vicissitudes with joy.
"Usually drag queens are gruff. I decided that I wanted to be happy,
entertain people, perform
aveiros mitzvoth," or religious deeds, he said.
An encounter with a popular Israeli rebbetzin is what launched Hadar's inner journey at age 19.
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His Bigedai Isha |
He began by wearing a yarmulke, a religious skullcap, and reciting
morning prayers in his bedroom. He left home to enroll in a Jerusalem
yeshiva, or religious seminary, hoping that daily Torah study would make
him stop thinking about men.
It didn't.
After a brief nighttime encounter with his roommate at the yeshiva,
Hadar said, he was booted from the seminary. He transferred to another
religious studies center, where a student matched him up with his wife's
ultra-Orthodox friend. They quickly married.
"I wanted to take the path that (God) commanded of us. I didn't see any
other option," Hadar said. "I thought the marriage would make me
straight and I would be cured."
He felt distressed while intimate with his wife, and wouldn't tell her
why. She demanded a divorce. She later gave birth to their daughter, who
is 11 years old today. His ex-wife still refuses to let them meet.
After Hadar's own sister met a similar fate - she divorced her husband
because he was gay - "homophobic" conversation erupted around the Hadar
family dinner table. Hadar's brother reprimanded the family, who had
also become religious, by simply asking, "Are gays not human beings?"
this is where the gay infiltration affects us.
His brother had stood up for Hadar without even knowing it.
A few months later, in 2010, Hadar mustered up the nerve to march in
Tel Aviv's gay pride parade. When he returned home that Sabbath eve, he
finally told his mother he was gay. "I thought it would be the blackest
day in my life," Hadar said, but she accepted him.
As a practicing "Orthodox" Jew, it hasn't been easy for Hadar to
integrate into mainstream gay life. He used to tuck his shoulder-length
religious side locks under a cap to fit in at bars. Eventually, he
sheared his side locks and trimmed his beard to thin stubble to increase
his luck on the dating scene.
He's still looking for love. But this year, Hadar found acceptance -
and self-expression - at Drag Yourself, a Tel Aviv school offering
10-month courses for budding drag performers. Students learn how to
teeter on high heels, apply false eyelashes and fashion their own drag
personas. Hadar, still a beginner, graduates next month.
The drag school, much like Israel's gay community itself, offers a rare
opportunity for Israelis to interact with others from disparate and
sometimes warring sectors of society. The school may be the only place
where a Jewish settler, a lapsed ultra-Orthodox Jew, an Arab-Israeli and
Israeli soldiers have stuffed their bras together.
Of all the students in his class, Hadar was the only one to show up wearing a yarmulke.
"I think it's fabulous," said Gil Naveh, a veteran Israeli drag queen
and director of the school, as he painted Hadar's lips apple-red before
his midnight debut at a Jerusalem gay bar. "He stays true to who he is."
If the claim that gay people cannot live with woman -is true- then how does he have a daughter?!?!?
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