Not Anonymous

I think I may be able to write coherently about what happened.

First of all, thanks you everyone who commented on my previous post, sent me an sms, an email, a phone call, all that.

I was safe and snug at home away from Tel-Aviv.

I didn't go to the impromptu Pride March that took place in the vicinity, nor will I be able to go to any vigil today (possibly tomorrow). I am going to go to the big demo that's going to happen in Rabin Square on Tuesday.

The number of injured rose to 15, at least 7 of them went into surgery during the night. Almost all the injured are minors (i.e. under the age of 18).
The death toll remains two, though over the night there were reports that a third had died but that turned out to be a mistake.
The murder victims are a 16 year old woman/girl and a 26 year old boy/man.

The girl (and all the other minors) went to this little underground floor which for nearly 20 years has acted as the headquarters of the LGBT Rights Association, colloquially known as The Aguda. The place has acted as a place of gathering for various queer groups, including this youth support group. There was no security guard, because this place for more than a decade, has been considered a "safe space" smack in the middle of Midtown Tel Aviv.
Talk about Queer central.

That dead man/boy acted as a councillor to these kids, many of them (if not most) closeted. This was where they came to be themselves, to vent, to get support, to be with others who are like them.
Like us.

During the months leading up to Pride (Fuck, just a month ago!) and during June Pride month, I wrote a bit about various homophobic incidences that happened over the country and one of them was a "random" would-be gay bashing in Tel Aviv, simply because two guys were kissing in the street.

There can really be no doubt that this was anything other than a homophobia motivated attack. Anyone trying to think of alternative scenarios is fooling themselves, or trying to. That little corner in the middle of the alley streets of central Tel Aviv was a known venue. Even if the little piece of shit didn't know it was going to be Teens and Young Adults there last night, the shooter knew damn well that there were going to be queer people there.

The recent entry written at the Israel Left blogging website begins like this:

Something happened in Tel-Aviv tonight, a milestone in the delicate relationship between minority and majority, left and right, and whatever other classifications you may wish to use here.

Honestly, I do not think so.
This is perhaps that most violent incident in scale, and it is overwhelming when an incident like this happens in the supposed cosmopolitan metropolis of "the only Democracy in the Middle East", however, we do not know how many queers do not report incidences of violence against them all year 'round. The statistics of this are very, very iffy. Queer people exist in every single intersecting demography. A large portion of them are closeted.
Just like these kids.

I think it is incredibly naive to believe that this is a milestone in anything. This is a flare of a disease, an acute symptom of a social disfigurement. The violence in which it was committed is alarming and may indicate that the pressure in the melting pot is reaching critical, but homophobia has been and is alive and kicking and only the incredibly clueless would thing otherwise, yes, even in liberal Tel Aviv.

Just last week [Southern!Girl] and I went to a Butch/Femme event, she was the Butch and I was the Femme and it was such a clear dyke event, that just walking in the street we both felt exposed but at the event itself in the Rogatka bar it felt so incredibly safe and good and fucking fun.
I did mention that if we were a little bit more on the South end of Tel Aviv I don't know how safe I would have felt walking down the street in my fancy dress and her in a fancy suit.

That centre is just a few kilometres South-West of where were.

I'm feeling kind of queasy.

The police's response to this was to close down the other LGBT clubs and meeting spaces because the gunman is still at large.
Seriously?
That's your immediate answer? To try and police our movements even more, especially when Queers are fucking everywhere in Tel Aviv and the majority are really not going to be "hanging out" at the community gathering centres unless there is an event.
And that's the point.
We go to the same cafe's as straight people, the same movie theatres, the same bloody streets okay!
This attack was deliberate and for our safety you're telling us you're closing down our other (what we believed) were safe spaces.

Last night I was in shock. Today I'm fucking pissed.
You can follow my Twitter which I used last night to disseminate information.

Remember how yesterday I wrote how Pride went without incidence?

Well, if you read the comments, you'll see that it wasn't 100% without incident.

The night after the march there were parties over the city, including a Dress-Up Gender Blender. Four friends left the club, a bunch of thugs caught sight of them and didn't seem to be able to handle the fact that Transpeople and Lesbians were walking around unashamed.

They began to curse and swear at the Transwoman - shall remain nameless as I do not have her permission to put her name here - who tried to reason with them; they demanded that she "fight like a man".
Her friends came to help, and they were beaten up as well.

A bystander came to their help and got them across the street.

At this time no one is placing any charges with the police. Even if they did, it would be unlikely that any good would come of it.

The Transwoman told a friend of hers that this sort of thing is practically a daily occurrence. That this is nothing special.
I cannot begin to imagine living like that. To be targeted because you do not fit an inmage is a person's mind.
Because the idea of gender variance is such a danger to the patriarchal frame in which we live and so few actually question.

The frisking was far more malicious than I first thought. I heard they were very touchy feely with Transpeople, Butch Dykes and people who came cross-dressed.

I got off lightly. As is generally the case.

I'm so pissed off I am barely coherent.

When I spoke about to my sister, regarding the body search, she said it was to cover their asses. There is covering ones ass and there is assault - and yes, as was commented - that kind of groping and humiliation is assault.
But it is soft and for "our own safety", no one who was there to protect us would ever consider us fair game for some identity policing: "It may be fine for you to march, but your right to exist as human beings is still questioned".

I think that because [Southern!Girl] is the first girl I've dated long enough to introduce to the family as my GF and to be public about it without too many closet issues, it has really brought home all the issues I don't think I've ever had to deal with before.
I've been secure in my Bi identity for years, dating men, however, did make me blind to the politics of such an identity - and only when I began to be Queer - which happened after I was discharged from the IDF - did I also become more politically aware in general.

Getting back to my point.

I remember being asked; what is so special about being gay*?

*The mainstream umbrella term for anyone who is not straight. There is a bit of an issue getting LGBT into mainstream discourse... let's not even talk about the word Queer - that's a whole can of worms.

The assumption of heterosexuality is so strong and so destructive. Not only that, the assumption of what is the right kind of heterosexual, what is normative, creates categories so rigid and so suffocating that people literally die from it.

Homo-les-bi-transphobia is not just the violence that those people had to endure as I wrote above.
It is the double standard placed upon such an identity. The policing of when such an identity is approved of (only inside away from the public).

I was told that being Out as a Mother can also cause problems in the workplace.
Sexism is indeed a problem.
The Mother identity is very much a problematic one for women.
However, being a mother makes you automatically accepted as a (re)producer in society. Being a mother is not an illegitimate identity as an identity - the problem is with public expectations from Mothers.

Gay identity is perceived as a threat to the building blocks of society, because it automatically rejects the heteronormative roles forced upon us from fetushood.

Even by becoming parents, which in Israel helps a lot - because a child is a blessing in breeding centric society like mine - who you are still under threat: "you're a real woman now" to a woman, who may very well be in the middle of transitioning to a man.
Not to mention that the assumption still remains hetero, there must be a father somewhere and there must be a mother somewhere.
And of course... there must be Female Mothers and Male Fathers.

My point.
The point it.
There are places in which we can walk without fear, but only a small percentage of us. We are still stated at, gawked at, whispered about, "who is the man? who is the woman", "you just need a Real Man", "Are you sure?", "It's just a phase", "Must you advertise your sexuality".

All that. It's got to go. Not in a while. Not in a generation maybe two. Pronto.

Off to Pride with [Southern!Girl] in Tel-Aviv!

It's going to be hot like hell and I'll probably be lobster-esque when I get back.

However, it'll be awesome!

Talk to y'all later!

Oh, and here's a meme:
The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ (if you want to) and find out what people don’t know about you.

It's been a good day indeed!

Phone calls upon phone calls, even an e-card from my little Nevvie.

Well... that's all.

Saturday is the family celebration, we're having a Picnic somewhere just outside Jerusalem at a new archaeological excavation site (the name I don't recall).
That'll be fun.

Friday [Southern!Girl] is taking me out and we will probably meet up a bunch of friends after that.
That too will be fun.

Tonight tamara_russo is taking me out. Dunno where yet, but it'll be very fun as well, no doubt.

I know, I don't know much.
But life is more fun when it's mysterious, isn't it.

It's the eve of the National Day of Remembrance and Heroism of the Holocaust.

Personally, ever since I was a teenager I've disliked the municipal and school ceremonies. More specifically, ever since I returned from a school trip to Poland in which we travelled through Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka, Bialystock, Lublin Ghetto, Majdanek, Kradow Ghetto, Plashow, Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birekenau and various forests in which bodies are buried in mass graves.

On teevee there is an Israeli made documentary about the Bielsky Brothers, the new Hollywood War-Action film Defiance is based on their story.

I'd really like to see the movie, as I can't recall a WWII movie in which the Jewish Partisans were the heroes and not a side anecdote that existed along side the Jewish victims.

I find the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust problematic.
During the travelling with my school mates and my mother in Poland, we had memorial ceremonies at each of the sites that were the concentration and death camps.
At the time, I remember being overwhelmed by everything.
I remember joking around with the other kids (we were 16-17) and I don't know if everyone was actually aware of what we were doing there.
I remember thinking "why haven't I cried yet?".
Because I didn't.
Cry, that is.
Biggest cry baby in the world, walking around the place I was told my people had been massacred and I just felt numb.
It was only when we got to Birekenau (about two days before we were set to go home) and we walked around through the (in)famous gate "Arbeit Macht Frei" - "Work Shall Set You Free".
The Nazis sure had a twisted funny bone.

I walked around the Blocks (the big red brick houses that were used for different uses) and I decided to explore the very famous Block 10 - that would be Josef Mengele's facility.
It was most likely the heat (we travelled in July) and the smallness of the hallways and the fact that throughout my childhood Josef Mengele was a bit of a Monster Under The Bed kind of figure, but with quite a bit of force I was struck by the enormity of what had actually happened in that place. And in all the other places I had been to that week.
I ran out of the Block and cried like the baby I am to Mummy who went on to tell me that her father's family (he died when she was young and I never got to know my maternal grandfather) were all exterminated - he had immigrated to South Africa in the early 30's, saving his life.

I did not travel to Poland in a vacuum, obviously. In my mind I had the annual ceremonies I sat through as a child and teen, I had Schindler's List, Escape from Sobibor, War and Remembrance (the scene in which they bring the people to the gas chambers, just thinking about it, makes me weepy) and all those other "clean" images.
As I mentioned, throughout the trip we had various memorial services at the sites of the and the Zionist connection was very much emphasised.
The various Zionist youth groups were part of the Jewish resistance and we were always hearing that today, because of Israel, this will never happen again.
Never again.
Never again.
Never again.
That's what we hear all the time.
Remember, remember and never forget.

We talk about the fact that a culture was lost, was destroyed.
We don't talk about the culture itself.
There is a Yiddish revival of a kind in Israel. As the Survivors are now very quietly disappearing and there will truly be no one to tell us what happened to them, perhaps us Israeli Jews are realising that we didn't actually come from nothing, that we had a home somewhere else once.

The Holocaust is very callously used to deflect any criticism of Israel. All our enemies are a "New-Hitler". Holocaust denial is a problem no doubt, but we are not the only people to have been persecuted and had genocide committed upon us.
The Holocaust, while being a part of Jewish history, doesn't actually belong to us... it belongs to the world.
To claim it as solely ours denied the history of other people.
I think the world in general has become callous to the Holocaust when movies like Valkyrie are produced along with Defiance.

Regardless, the way Israel uses the Holocaust is post-traumatic in the extreme and we nurture this post-trauma constantly by the split conciousness we have as both victims and no-longer-victims.
I feel that the lesson learned from the Holocaust is that humanity reached a point of creative destruction that should be examined - because I really think it was the scope and industrialism of the deaths that were committed - after all the Holocaust is hardly the first (or the last) genocide to have been perpetrated.

I can't help but finish this post with my own brand of funny:

Mazal Tov Robbie and Tsipi!
I hope you have a wonderful life as Mr and Mrs/Ms!!
I love yo so much!!!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post and to everyone who sent an email or gave me a ring.
All the sentiments, congrats and Mazal Tovs are greatly, greatly appreciated!

Anyway, would y'all like to read about the very long day I had?
( Of course you do )

Every country and nation has little moments in which you proclaim "Only in [name of country]!".

I came upon a moment like that yesterday on my home on my regular mode of public transportation. Now, lots of things make me go "Only in Israel", but this incident was seriously unique.

I'm sitting and a few rows in the back I hear a guy speak to his buddy on his cellphone. He was crystal clear and I couldn't miss a word.
Here is what he said, translated from Hebrew to English for your benefit:

"Hey man [other person on the phone], I saw Waltz with Bashir last night. And guess what, one of the soldiers that was interviewed was my Commanding Officer when I was in the Army.

My eyes fell out of my face.
He continued:

The movie doesn't make us look good. But it was powerful and seeing my CO there got me to be even more connected

This country is seriously small and screwed up.

It's an interesting coincidence that on the same day that I had this Overheard on Israeli public transport that the social activism channel Social TV (YouTube Channel) broadcast the second edition of their magazine In an Occupying Society, which is a ten minute podcast of interviews in which Left, anti-Occupation, Feminist, etc activists talk about the Occupation from various perspectives, from the Israeli side, in an attempt to raise awareness as to what the Occupation is costing Israeli society.

This month's edition is about Militarism and it connects so well with what I overheard on the train.
The video is in Hebrew with English subtitles.


Last month's edition was the economic cost of the Occupation: Part 1 and Part 2.

I'm really frustrated.

I want to write about what I'm going through, because it's important that this sort of thing not be silenced. However, this is also an internal family thing, to do with my parents and my brother's wedding.
I don't want to vilify anyone.
Because I love everyone in my family, I'm very lucky to have them.

I suppose that's why the situation is so hurtful.
I thought I was safe from Homophobia from the home.

Homophobia isn't a matter of opinion. And it isn't about what other people will think.
It's about believing that there are different standards for people who are involved in same-sex relationships.
It isn't about someone thinking I'm a pervert.
It's about the fact that I'm expected to either be out or be quiet - unless I'm advertising my sexuality of course, which only Queers can do because when it's everyone else (i.e. Heterosexuals) it's okay to hold hands, dance around and basically declare the fact that they are straight.
But that's not advertising.
That's "normal".
I'm sick of normal.
I just want to be.

Wish me luck.

I've always been a bit of a floater when it came to Activism - it has to do that I haven't actually been politically active for that long - I've mainly been active at the Uni and participated in a few things in which I didn't particularly feel I needed to actually be affiliated.

Well, since the operation on Gaza and the marginalization of the Left in these here parts I've felt the need to find a place in which I could be active and have a firm support network.

This past Sunday a general meeting of Hadash - the Party I voted for if you recall - the agenda of which was the establishment of a New Left. Of course, it was more about the broadening of the message Hadash always spoke, but because they aren't "Zionist" have been marginalised.

Thank you human ingenuity for the Interwebs.

Anyway, Hadash (al-Jabha in Arabic) is an acronym for The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. Like many Leftist organizations, fronts and movements, it is kind of taken for granted that women are included, that women have something to say.
And on Sunday, at the general meeting, every single one of the women who spoke to the large assembly of over 300 people, said that there is not enough women representation.

So this morning, the first meeting of what may turn into the Hadash Feminist Forum met up. It was really interesting, 'cause there were a few older Hadash members, including former (and legendary) MK Tamar Gozansky and a whole lot of newbies like Moi.

I won't get into the whole meeting as minutes were taken and I actually don't remember everything that was said.
I added my own 0.2 about queer women and their position in the Left and society as whole, because we kept talking about women of colour (Jewish and Arab), working class women, mothers etc.
I felt good about at least raising the issue

What really bugged me though, was when an Anarchist man ( had some things to say - cut for going off tangent )

It was a productive meeting and we've already arranged to meet other women's movements that are part of the Front and will most likely start getting things done for International Woman Day - 8th of March FYI.

I'm hoping to find an activism base here, because I'd really like to strengthen the parliamentarian Left in these coming months because of blow it took in these election.
Bibi is Prime Minister.
What is the Agnostic/Atheist cry for help and hope and despair?
Oh, the Humanity!

So goes the saying.
Al Capone is reputed to have said that... it's funny that Chicago brought forth a man of that calibre, no?
Huh.
Maybe... not so much.

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What a wonderful question on these here elections days.

I went to vote with Mummy at around 10-ish. I was quite excited seeing as it was my first general elections, as I've mentioned before.

I'd like to address these three options through through the prism of Israel Politics.

I'm an Optimist because I voted positively on the issues and not against a candidate that I found nauseating through a vote that would make me need to have a shower once I got home. I voted for a party which barely has any mandates in the Knesset, but which did the grey work and actually passed laws that were social and environmental. I've heard the MK's and candidates speak and while there are problems, they're not problems that can't be fine tuned, tweaked or dealt with.

I'm a Pessimist because I don't think that anyone of the Prime Ministers to be will be good for the country. I don't think any of them hold any of the People's interests at heart, nor do I believe any of them have the ability to plan more than a year a head.
If someone with some actual fore sight bothered to try and run for PM, they'd be eating dust, because the People (you, me, us) don't have any fore sight either.
We don't have much of a memory either.
Hence by Bibi Netanyahu will be elected Prime Minister.
Again.

I'm a Realist because no matter what happens, we'll drudge and charge through and not much will be different. Because things do not change via a system that is so far removed from those who have voted the Leaders in.

This is, after all, politics.

If I am anything, I am a Cynical Optimist and I believe in the Vox Populi Vox Day and when only 60+% of the Populi cast a Vox... there is not God to speak of, or for.
But I have hope.
Simply because if I didn't, I wouldn't to care.
And then... why would I bother about anything.

I sign this oh so positive entry with a quote:
There's no certainty – only opportunity.
- V for Vendetta