Last week Israel’s gay and lesbian community sought to hold a series of events, including a gay rights parade. These events have been held for the past five years. Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders, as they have in previous years, publicly opposed these events.
The New York Times reported, “Last year a 10-day international gay festival was planned.” It was canceled when, during a local march, “an Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants.” This year, Israeli security forces are on a heightened state of alert to guard against a Palestinian attack. Increased tensions in Gaza have resulted from a shelling incident and deaths of 18 Palestinian civilians. The police, with the consent of the gay community, moved the Gay Pride march—which is now more of a rally—to Hebrew University stadium, where maximum security would be possible. To its great credit, the Israeli Supreme Court to its great credit rejected all requests to bar the parade. The rally took place, guarded by 3,000 police officers.
The leaders of all three religions who protested the right of gays and lesbians to rally and parade should bow their heads in shame, particularly the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The Forward reported, “Nearly two weeks of rioting have rocked the city’s Orthodox neighborhoods, several times spilling over into the city center, in protest of the planned gay pride march. Crowds of ultra-Orthodox youths, at times numbering in the thousands, have showered police and motorists with stones and have set trash cans on fire. Dozens of police have been injured, and at least 60 protesters have been arrested.”
It will be interesting to learn if reporters follow up and report on how many of those arrested were actually tried and convicted, with punishment imposed. To the credit of Israel’s Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, he rejected, according to the Forward, “an appeal by Jerusalem police who said they could not guarantee the marchers’ safety. ‘Giving in to threats is a threat to democracy, and therefore it is unthinkable not to hold the parade,’” he said. Because of the danger, it appears that the sponsors of the event agreed to the police request to eliminate the parade and only hold the rally.
The Forward further reported “Israel’s chief rabbinate issued a statement Monday calling Israel’s homosexuals the ‘lowest of people.’” Jews suffered so much under the Nazis who killed 6 million of them. It boggles my mind that Jews and rabbis in particular would seek to dehumanize and some seek to injure fellow Israeli Jews of whose sexual orientation they disapprove.
Jews and homosexuals were placed in the same concentration camps by the Nazis. Homosexuals were required to wear pink triangles and Jews compelled to wear yellow triangles. Both were herded into the same gas chambers and their remains burned in the same incinerators at Auschwitz and other death camps. The estimated number of homosexuals murdered by the Nazis is 10,000 to 25,000. The National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City make note of those tragedies.
Some time ago, I went to Israel with Mayor Mike Bloomberg and others to mark our solidarity with Israel in the face of a suicide bombing of a bus on which many ultra-Orthodox Jews had been traveling. We boarded a No. 2 bus, the same bus line on which the bombing took place.
On the bus, I chatted with a young man, perhaps 25 years old, who is a member of the ultra-Orthodox community who were the primary victims of the bus bombing. I asked whether he served in the army. He said, “no.” I asked if he didn’t think he and other religious young men owed military service to the state. He answered that “their daily prayers and study of the Torah also protect Israel.”
I said, “Forgive me, but I think that’s not adequate. If you feel that way, why not give half a day to prayer and study and half a day to guarding bus stops and other public places from suicide bombers?” He replied, “We will have to agree to disagree.”
It was especially interesting for me to read in The Times that “Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who flew in from Brooklyn, denounced the rally from the front gate of the stadium.” When I was mayor he and two others held a ceremony in the early ’80s putting me into cherem (similar to excommunication) because of my support for the gay and lesbian community, as their bigoted counterparts long ago expelled Spinoza. I am proud of the fact that—as a congressman—I supported the rights of gays and lesbians to rally when they were seeking a permit to use Central Park and the Department of Parks was opposing the application. Before that, I supported the gay rights parade committee in securing from the Beame administration a shift from 6th Avenue to 5th Avenue for the parade. In 1978 during the first weeks of my mayoralty, I issued an Executive Order that barred discrimination by government against anyone in government on the basis of his or her sexual orientation. In 1986 I signed into law legislation protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in the private sector.
Because I am considerably older than Rabbi Levin, it is probable that I will see the face of God before he does. I wonder: Should I ask the Lord to cast him down into hell and despair for the evil deeds and words he has uttered against his fellow human beings? I’ve decided not to do that, in the interest of freedom of expression. But the First Amendment is not binding on God. I trust His judgment on meting out appropriate punishment.
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch can be heard every Friday at 6 p.m. on Bloomberg Radio.
