Tel Aviv to build first-ever gay center (Eli Senyor, 12.15.05)
The Tel Aviv Municipality has decided to build a new statutory institution in the city, which will serve as a community center for members of the homosexual-lesbian community.
The center will be established as a municipal building, and the next elected mayors will be committed to its maintenance, regardless of their political views.
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Jerusalem proudly presents (Nurit Felter, 05.29.07)
The proudest campaign ever was launched by the Tourism Ministry in cooperation with the Association for Civil Rights and the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association (the “Aguda”). The goal: To encourage GLBT tourism to Jerusalem.
For the past few years, Tel Aviv, along with Berlin, Barcelona, and San Francisco, has established itself as a GLBT friendly city and a popular vacation site for the community's members.
As a result, the Tourism Ministry decided to launch a new campaign aimed at attracting "proud visitors" to the Holy Land. The campaign focuses on scenes from the Israeli gay community's lifestyle.
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Ivri Lider, Eytan Fox on 'Out's' most important gay list (Roee Baharir, 10.24.07)
The American magazine "Out" included Israeli pop star Ivri Lider and film director Eytan Fox on its annual list of the world's 100 most important gays, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.
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Monument to honor homosexual Holocaust victims (Reuven Weiss, 05.01.08)
A monument honoring the homosexual men and women who were persecuted due to their sexual orientation and perished during the Holocaust is to be established in Meir Garden in Tel Aviv, according to Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai
A quarter of a million homosexuals were persecuted during the Holocaust, and tens of thousands were murdered because the Nazi Party believed their sexual preference to be deviant. In the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned, gay men were forced to wear a pink triangle while lesbian women wore a black patch.
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Israel proudly presents (Shlomi Laufer, 03.24.08)
Australian gay men’s magazine, DNA, has included the video for the song “Hot Summer Nights” by Israeli singer Yohanathan on its list of top gay-themed music videos.
The video for Yohanathan’s song, with includes a steamy homo-erotic kiss, came out last year, just as the singer himself "came out" and announced that he was gay.
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'Out' publishes guide to picking up Israeli men (Itamar Eichner, 03.22.08)
Out Magazine, one of the leading homosexual magazines in the US, has recently published a guide to picking up men in Israel, with an added bonus of recommended pickup lines such as: "Would you like to spin my dreidel?"; "Is that a mezuzah in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"; "Do you sleep on your stomach? No? Can I?"; and other gems.
'Out' has anointed Tel Aviv this month's recommended tourist attraction, labeling it the capital of Bauhaus, commerce, culinary culture, and, of course, men. Tel Aviv's coffee houses are described as packed full of people advertising the gay slogan, 'We're here and we're queer'.
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Seizing the Day in Tel Aviv (Henry Alford, 20.07.08)
For Israelis, the 45 minutes that separate Jerusalem from Tel Aviv are a fitting metaphor for the cultural gulf they see between, on the one hand, the hidebound, pious cradle of world religion and, on the other, the libertine, nightclub-filled Mediterranean idyll. But for us visitors, the proximity of the two cities is a huge boon — it’s rare that you can pair a beach vacation with 5,000 years of history. And while the memories I developed during the course of my weeklong, first-ever trip to Tel Aviv are pleasant and strong, the ones I concurrently made during my eight-hour-long, first-ever trip to Jerusalem are permanently scarred into my brain.
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Is Tel Aviv Ready to Crash the Global Art Party? (Robert Goff, 02.11.08)
“In Tel Aviv, it feels like every conversation, gesture, project and event has a sense of meaning to it that I've never felt in such concentrationelsewhere,” said Shamim Momin, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, who visited Tel Aviv for Art TLV. “Yet at the same time this place feels remarkably joyful and — dare I say — decadently laid back.”
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Choosing Israel, Not the Hamptons (David Kaufman, 09.03.07)
Views of the Mediterranean — rather than of historic sites — are among the key selling points in Tel Aviv, Israel’s second-strongest market for foreign sales. Barely 90 years old, Tel Aviv’s skyline is dotted with boxy, 1950s-era apartment blocks, along with an increasing number of sleek new luxury residential towers. They’re a far cry from Jerusalem’s low-rise, stone-clad houses.
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Israel: An Arty Oasis in Old Tel Aviv (Sarah Wildman, 05.11.06)
Quirky terra-cotta buildings, once home to writers and artists, crumbled in the salty Mediterranean air. Bright yellow signs dotted the streets, admonishing visitors to keep the Sabbath holy, signs of the quiet Orthodox Jewish population that settled there.
But in recent years, Neve Tzedek has returned to its bohemian roots, as a century of neglect gave way to an artists’ enclave. Spurred by the 1989 opening of the Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater (6 Yechieli Street; 972-3-510-5656; www.suzannedellal.org.il), ever hipper restaurants and boutiques began popping up along streets barely wide enough for cars to pass, creating an oasis of tranquillity in the midst of a frenetic and often stressful city.
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Bursting the ‘Bubble,’ as Tel Aviv Turns 100 (Lisa Goldman, 01.04.09)
Every few weeks, gay Arab men from all over Israel gather for a party at a rented nightclub on Tel Aviv’s Herzl Street. The highlight of the evening is a drag show, with heavily made-up amateur performers dressed as sexy, pouting Arab pop stars. They are followed by Raafat, a performance artist from Jaffa, who lip-syncs old-fashioned Palestinian nationalist songs. Nearly all these men lead double lives; if they were to reveal their sexual orientation in their conservative communities, they would risk ostracism or even death. But in Tel Aviv they are free to celebrate their Palestinian, gay identity — at a club located on a street named after the founder of modern Zionism.
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Precedent: Gay couple to adopt their son after 14 years (Israel News, 03.10.09)
The Ramat Gan Family Court set a precedent Tuesday after allowing a gay couple to finally adopt their foster son after 14 years.
Prof. Uzi Even and Dr. Amit Kama have been serving as foster parents to Yossi Even-Kama, 30, since 1995.
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Tel Aviv - the pink city (Danny Sadeh, 13.03.09)
The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association will, for the first time ever, hold its annual symposium in Tel Aviv this October. The event is expected to attract some 200 travel agents that specialize in the gay and lesbian market.
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Artistic, religious, and proud (Yoav Friedman, 18.03.09)
For the first time in Israel, 14 gay religious artists belonging to the Orthodox community will present their work at an art exhibit.
The art show, titled “Yots’im me’aron ha’kodesh” (a play on words in Hebrew literally meaning “getting out of the holy ark” but also hinting at “getting out of the closet,”) deals with the intersection of the artists’ Jewish and sexual identity, while seeking to show that co-existence between them is possible.
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'The Bubble' wins 4 Glitter awards (Merav Yudilovitch, 12.07.08)
Israeli film "The Bubble" earned four major Glitter awards - Including "Best Picture" - in the International Gay Film Awards held in Hollywood this weekend.
Eytan Fox and Gal Uchovsky's film won in the categories "Gay Press," "Best Foreign Film," "Foreign Gay & Lesbian Film festival Award" and the most prestigious award for the evening - "Best Picture."
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Gay and Lesbian Travel Overview: Tel Aviv (Matt Link)
For those who know Israel only via the six o'clock news, Tel Aviv is nothing less than a revelation. Looking more like South Beach than the Middle East, this modern, robust city (nary an ancient wall in sight) is filled with surfers, men in bikinis, girls in thongs, restaurant tables on the beach, and outdoor shopping malls. The place feels like party central compared to buttoned-down Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv's gay scene pumps until dawn.
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Live and let live in Tel Aviv (Clark Turner, 30.05.08)
'Everyone is gay in Tel Aviv,' Amit, the manager of the gay-friendly Ben Yehuda Apartments, declares. 'There are gays on the beach and gays on the streets. And if someone tells you they are not, I can tell you differently,' he adds with a knowing smile.
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Destinations: When in Tel Aviv... (David Kaufman, 30.04.08)
This sunny seaside town, with its Miami-esque Mediterranean promenade and easygoing café culture, is packed with the kind of "we're here, we're queer" vibe more typically found in Sydney and San Francisco than in one of the most conservative regions in the world.
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Investigation: Israel at 60, Part 1 (David Kaufman, Fall 2008)
This summer marked the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, the first modern Jewish nation, the Middle East’s first parliamentary democracy, and perhaps the only country in the region where a viable, visible, and vocal LGBT culture not only exists but also thrives. Founded in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust and espousing Jewish values, Israel has emerged as a land of unlikely gay-straight alliances and unusual cultural contradictions, and it’s unexpectedly becoming a gay tourism mecca.
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Investigation: Israel at 60, Part 2 (David Kaufman, Fall 2008)
Along with its tiny size, Israel’s history of war and terror has resulted in a worldview far more pragmatic than commonly held attitudes in the United States or Europe. “In a nation so full of turmoil and people dying young, having your son or daughter turn out gay is hardly the worst thing that can happen,” Uchovsky says. Still, this air of openness only extends so far. Three years ago religious extremists stabbed marchers in Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade. Early opposition to the city’s long-planned 2006 WorldPride event brought together an unprecedented public alliance of right-wing Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders in Israel and abroad. Much as in larger Israeli secular society, life outside the liberal “Tel Aviv bubble” can remain close-minded and staunchly conservative.
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