Lior participated in the European Jewish Queer Pride that took place in Rome from June 9 to 11. Below you can read a report Lior wrote on the event.
Roma Shabbaton and Pride
Keshet Italia kicked off the Pride season in Europe in grand style with a shabbaton and a brilliant float in the Roma Pride parade. The Colosseum is spectacular on an ordinary day but when it’s viewed between fluttering pride flags emblazoned with Magen Davids, well, that’s a whole different feeling.
The weekend started with a meet-and-greet (or hugs and reconnect) in Il Pitigliani, Rome’s Jewish Culture Centre: I caught up with old friends and made a whole host of new ones. We popped champagne and ate Roman pizza – the best in the world – before starting the serious business of discussing the challenges we are facing in our various countries and communities. Meir Brauner, Ariel Heller, and Raffaele Sabbatini, the three who worked tirelessly to make the Proud to be Jews Shabbaton happen, made us all feel welcome and included.
Increasing intolerance
Representatives from Jewish LGBTQI+ organisations from across Europe, and a few from the USA, spoke about their organisations, the challenges they face and the solutions they have implemented. All across Europe – indeed across the world – we face the same challenges of rising homo-and transphobia as well as increasing antisemitism. The right-wing, populist backlash is sweeping across the globe and all minorities are in the crosshairs. We spent a long time discussing our mutual challenges; the oppression we face from the established Jewish communities and organisations as well as the hostility we encounter when being visibly Jewish in LGBTIQ spaces. We are asked to prove ourselves or present our bona fides everywhere and sometimes it just feels easier, less of a hassle to hide some part of our identity in order to pass. It feels like a regression to have to hide or deny a part of my identity; and we all know that hiding doesn’t really make us any safer.
There have been some (questionable) successes, the European Commission has deigned to notice us and Katherina von Schnurbein, the Commission’s coördinator for combatting antisemitism and fostering Jewish life (including Queer Jewish life) in the European Union, sent a video message. She said “It is a great pleasure and honour to address you on the occasion of your Jewish LGBTIQ event taking place as part of the Pride in Rome. Your event is a great way to foster Jewish queer life in all its diversity. On the fifth of October 2021 the European Commission adopted its’ first ever strategy on combatting antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. The strategy sets out measures focussing on combatting all forms of antisemitism, in particular online, protecting and fostering Jewish life in the EU, and education, research, and also Holocaust remembrance.”
I’ll write that again it case you didn’t quite catch it or believe it: The fifth of October 2021 was the first time the European Commission adopted a strategy on combatting antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. Von Schnurbein was appointed in 2015, what, one wonders, has she been doing all this time? The European Commission says that it aims to “end antisemitism and to ensure a future for Jewish life in the European Union in all its’ diversity, including LGBTIQ Jews.”
Guns and Body Armour
The EU and the EC make nice speeches but they don’t seem to be doing much; all across continental Europe, if you’re visiting some new city and aren’t quite sure where the Jewish museum, the Cultural Centre, or the synagogue is, one simply wanders along in the general direction until one sees the police officers in body armour wielding assault rifles. That’s how you know you’ve found the synagogue, big, burly blokes with guns.
This may reassure some people but it is evidence that the EU and the EC are failing miserably when it comes to fostering Jewish life. How can we build vibrant open communities when we are always under the watchful eye of people with guns? How safe are we if we can only gather and be visible behind bullet-proof glass? How can we build a future when a significant percentage of our income is spent on security? Do we hire a teacher and buy books or do we hire a security team? Across Europe, Jewish schools look like prisons: Alcatraz Alef-Bet! What anxiety, what trauma are we heaping on the next generation of European Jews?
Intersectional Discrimination
Von Schnurbein’s address continued, “On 12 November 2020, the European Commission adopted its’ first ever LGBTIQ equality strategy, signalling the Commission’s commitment to build a European Union where you can be who you are and love who you want without fear of recrimination or discrimination. The strategy sets out measures to tackle discrimination against LGBTIQ people and ensure their safety to build LGBTIQ inclusive societies. As Jewish LGBTIQ people you risk becoming the victim of discrimination, hate-speech, and hate-crime based on antisemitism and on your sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics. You risk becoming the victim of multiple intersectional discrimination.” Again, I wonder why it took the European Commission so long to adopt an LGBTIQ equality strategy…
Pride Parade
The pride parade was massive, magnificent, and majestic. I felt like a Roman emperor, carried in glory on a chariot through the throngs of people waving flags, dancing, and being fabulously queer. For the most part, people cheered and waved when they saw the Magen David on all our flags and realised that our gorgeous icon was wearing a kippah. It was a truly wonderful experience, and I hope that it will be the first of many European Jewish Pride Shabbatons.
In his opening address, Meir Brauner said he wanted to create a European Keshet and celebrate Pride in a new city every year. He stressed the need for us to be visible as proud queer Jews and to be able to live our lives both in our queer communities and our Jewish communities, with openness, joy, and acceptance. Ken yehe ratzon.