Last week two teenagers were murdered at a gay center in Tel Aviv. (In some places the Hebrew word "moadon" has been translated as "club," but this is misleading. It was more like a community center than a place for dancing and listening to loud music.)
I attended a rally in Kikar Rabin last night with 70,000 others in solidarity with the gay community. (Kikar Rabin is a plaza named for Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered there in 1995 following a peace rally.) President Shimon Peres spoke, as well as the mayor of Tel Aviv and several government ministers and members of Israeli parliament. An adult staffer at the gay center who was apparently injured in the attack spoke on the podium from a wheelchair. Even though I could not understand all his words, he was quite moving.
Or commented to me that none of the speakers made the "obvious" connection between hatred of homosexuals and hatred of Arabs. I asked whether that would have been a divisive connection to make, and he said that for the crowd in attendance it would not have been divisive.
The labels for queers in Hebrew are awkward cognates. Lesbians are lezbiot, homosexuals are homo'im, etc.
On Thursday I moved from kitah bet to kitah bet plus. Think grade 2 to grade 2.5 (out of 9), without the graduation ceremony. Today, one of my classmates from kitah bet joined me in kitah bet plus. Let's call him Robert. Today Robert and I were sitting on opposite sides of the classroom. During a break, he asked to switch seats with me. I agreed and asked why. Robert said that there was a French Christian family on his side of the classroom that was intolerant of his sexuality. I spent a week and a half in kitah bet with him and didn't realize he was gay, but he seemed pretty sure that this family was hostile to him because he was gay. I did not sense their hostility or question his perception. We switched seats.
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