Churban Yerushalayim 5773

As police helicopters monitored the parade from the sky, Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, who was helping oversee officers at the procession, said officers had taken extensive measures to ensure the safety of all participants at the march.

“Approximately 2,500 people are taking part in the parade and police have secured the area, and we’re escorting all the people taking part,” he said. “Special patrol units, border patrol units and undercover units are watching over the crowd.”

Despite the heavy police presence, Rosenfeld said three arrests were made at the parade by 8 p.m. – including of a haredi man who lobbed a stink bomb at marchers, and two women who dressed up as a donkey and monkey, carrying a sign that read “I’m a proud donkey,” to incite the crowd.

“Undercover officers and patrol units arrested them, and there were no injuries,” he said.

Rosenfeld added that police have also been monitoring several anti-gay demonstrations in the capital.
“At the same time we’re dealing with counter-demonstrations taking place in haredi neighborhoods, where there is a strong police presence,” he said.

Meanwhile, several participants at the event expressed their thoughts regarding acceptance and tolerance in a religious city, pluralism, personal safety and the differences between being gay in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Chaya Grossman, 19, of Jerusalem – who was raised haredi and described herself as bisexual – said she found uncommon support from her ultra-Orthodox family.

“Maybe I’m not supposed to say it, but I feel quite safe because I have a loving family and loving friends,” said Grossman.

“But I also have friends who have been "abused" and "discriminated" against by their families and friends.”
Grossman said her family’s support surprised and encouraged her.

“My father said he knew [I was bisexual] when I first told him. But what makes it even more precious to me is that other haredi parents – and even secular parents – don’t accept their children for being gay.

“I’m fortunate,” she added.

Grossman conceded though that it has not been easy for her to be bisexual within her ultra- Orthodox community.

“Listen, I come from a haredi community, so I need to hide [my sexuality] from most of them,” she said.

In terms of comparing gay life in the capital to Tel Aviv – named the world’s best gay city in 2011 by LGBT travel website Gaycities.com – Grossman said Jerusalem is markedly less tolerant.

“I don’t really know the Tel Aviv gay community, but I know it’s much more open,” Grossman said. “Here people accept us less. We’re different.”

Guy Geron, 26, a computer science student from Tel Aviv, said he does not feel safe being gay in Jerusalem.

“I don’t feel safe here,” Geron said. “I don’t come here a lot, but my ex-boyfriend is from Jerusalem and I know I can’t act the same here as [in] Tel Aviv because here I can’t [publicly] express my affection for my boyfriend – or even speak out about things related to me being gay.

“You have to be smart here,” he added. “It’s not the way I like it, but I accept it as reality.”

Geron said he attributed Jerusalem’s lack of acceptance to the city’s “outspoken religious population.”

Asked what needed to be done to make Jerusalem more tolerant, he said the answer is twofold.
“I think it’s a matter of the politicians in office making changes, and gaining legitimacy from the people,” he said. “It’s a political process, as well as a social one.”

Meanwhile, David Shatz, 25, of Jerusalem and his girlfriend, Yael Sloma, 26, originally of Tel Aviv, said they attended the parade to support their gay friends.

“We came because we think it’s important – specifically in Jerusalem – to support gay rights because Jerusalem is a very conservative and religious city, even puritan,” said Shatz.

Sloma compared what she described as significant differences between gay life in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“In Tel Aviv it’s like a huge party,” she said. “But here it’s more activist-related because it has much more significance, even though it should be a nonissue.

Of course, today it’s a major issue because of the parade.”

Sloma said she has noticed in the capital how rare it was for gay couples to be open in public.

“A few weeks ago, while I was walking down the street, I saw two girls holding hands, which in Tel Aviv is normal – but I realized how uncommon it is here,” she said.

Sloma attributed the dearth of openly gay citizens to the capital’s lack of “pluralism” and “liberalism.”

“I notice it even when I wear a short skirt,” she added.

Still, Tal, a journalist who requested her last name not be published, said she thinks conditions have improved for homosexuals in Jerusalem over the years.

“I pretty much feel accepted [in Jerusalem],” she said. “Lately, as the years pass, it has gotten more so than in previous years.

I’m not sure how it happened, but it’s how I feel.”

“I don’t feel safe, but that’s a general feeling because of the lack of peace,” she said. “It has nothing to do with being a lesbian.”
(Jerusalem Post)

Police Told Not To Arrest Women With Out Tops (Shirts) On

In the cold of February, as New York City police officers gathered for their daily orders at roll call, they were given a rather unusual command, for both its timing and its substance: If they happened upon a topless woman, they were not to arrest her. 

The command was read at 10 consecutive roll calls. Each of the city’s 34,000 officers, in theory, got the message: For “simply exposing their breasts in public,” women are guilty of no crime. 

Whether any officer encountered such a brave-hearted, bare-chested soul is not clear, nor is the reason for the Police Department’s concern about such matters in the dead of winter. 

One possible explanation lies in the person of Holly Van Voast, a Bronx photographer and performance artist known for baring her breasts. 

The order was disclosed in an official memorandum contained in a federal lawsuit Ms. Van Voast filed on Wednesday against the city and the department. The memo makes clear that bare-breasted women should not be cited for public lewdness, indecent exposure or any other section of the penal law. 

Even if the topless display draws a lot of attention, officers are to “give a lawful order to disperse the entire crowd and take enforcement action” against those who do not comply, the memo says. “Whether the individuals are clothed is not a factor in making a determination about whether the above-mentioned crowd conditions exist.” 

The suit lists 10 episodes in 2011 and 2012 in which the police detained, arrested or issued summonses to Ms. Van Voast, 46, for baring her breasts at sites that included the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, in front of a Manhattan elementary school, on the A train and outside a Hooters restaurant in Midtown. That last episode, the suit says, ended with her being taken by the police to a nearby hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. 

Each complaint against her was dismissed or dropped, her lawyers said, for one simple reason: The state’s highest court ruled more than two decades ago that baring one’s chest in public — for noncommercial activity — is perfectly legal for a woman, as it is for a man. 

But when Ms. Van Voast’s top came off again this year, her lawyers said, what had seemed to be an annual rite of spring did not follow. “I was aware that they stopped telling her to put a shirt on, stopped arresting her, stopped carting her off to mental institutions,” Ronald L. Kuby, one of her lawyers, said. “But I was not aware why.” 

The memo does not allude to its origin, and a department spokeswoman declined to discuss what had precipitated it. The spokeswoman, Inspector Kim Y. Royster, said such memos were “periodically circulated to remind personnel of our policies.” She added that it “comports with the N.Y.S. Court of Appeals ruling on taking enforcement action against individuals for public nudity.”

The memo’s language is as clear as it is legalistic. Officers “shall not enforce any section of law, including penal law sections 245.00 (public lewdness) and 245.01 (exposure of a person) against female individuals who are simply exposing their breasts in public.” 

Katherine Rosenfeld, a lawyer at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady who is also representing Ms. Van Voast, saw a direct connection between the memo and her client’s public performances, often done in the character of a mustachioed “topless paparazzo” called Harvey Van Toast. “It establishes that they’ve been in error in all the times that they’ve charged her,” she said. 

Ms. Van Voast, in her lawsuit, is seeking compensation from the city as well as punitive damages from several named and unnamed officers for her treatment, which the suit alleges constituted civil rights violations.

The memo reminds the officers that there are still times when they can detain, arrest or give tickets to women or men for being indecent in public — “if the actions of any individual rise to the level of a lewd act (e.g. masturbation, simulated sexual act), regardless of whether the individual is clothed above their waist,” or if the person is naked below the waist “and is not entertaining or performing in a play, exhibition, show or entertainment.” 

Of a dozen patrol officers from precincts around the city interviewed on Wednesday, nearly all correctly cited the law on toplessness, though none would describe roll call discussions. Each declined to be quoted by name, citing departmental policy. 

“It was told to us,” one said. “But I don’t remember if it was at roll call or in a conversation like this.”

Another said he remembered hearing last summer that “it’s legal to be topless if you’re a man or a woman.”

“I thought you had to have body paint,” a female officer said.

“No,” the first replied. “You don’t need that.” 

(New York Times)

If our "askoniem" are truly looking out for us how come in the past 20 years not 1 politician tried to fix this major problem!