Another battle won in Israel! The Jerusalem Open House the GLBT center in the Holy City of Jerusalem won an important ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday. The municipality was ordered to fund their work! See this article for details. And read th
For years the city of Jerusalem has sought to discriminate openly against the GLBT community. This is in such contrast to the municipality of Tel Aviv which not only funds the gay and lesbian community but helped to build a state of the art center, funds a shelter for runaway youth and funds the gay pride march and openly courts gay and lesbian tourists! The two cities are so opposite one another in every way but not only on this issue!
It remains to be seen how the city government will respond. But Jerusalem is losing its non-religious citizenry at a rapid pace. By non-religious I am using the English translation of the Hebrew. It doesn’t mean they aren’t Jewish or religious -they will celebrate Shabbat and eat kosher. But Jerusalem is losing its population of Jews who would identify as more progressive because of the overwhelming traditional outlook. So this court ruling is very historic.
Ironically, the Supreme Court itself is in Jerusalem along with the rest of the government. So they live in and near and certainly work in the city!
The Jerusalem Open House does great work. They sponsor coming out groups, work with religious gays and lesbians, they have groups for Palestinians who face especial discrimination and difficulties. I am proud to support their work and I hope you will too.
Click on this link and make a high holy day offering to support the Jerusalem Open House. This will help advance their cause and all of ours.
Thank you for this post, Denise.
Comments are closed.