Kfar Saba Pride Parade

Yesterday, June 1st, 2018, I participated in the first ever Kfar Saba Pride Parade.

Pride is a bit of a touchy subject in Israel. for many years there was only the parade in Tel Aviv and only recently did we start to have parades in various other cities.

There is, of course, blowback as the religious right and ultra orthodox still consider Pride (of all variations) to be an amoral sickness and willfully defying God.

Due to worries by the police from bad crowd reactions they even asked that the parade take place behind 2 meters tall opaque walls (that the organizers would have to pay for). Luckily, this idea was dropped due to public pressure. We still had to march in a tightly controlled route, surrounded by cops and fences. The security personnel made sure that no one that wasn't authorized could sneak into the initial compound or the marching route.

I was a bit taken aback by the strong political leanings on displays. I thought pride was a universal thing but of course there was a strong presence of the political left (balloons, shirts, stickers and flags) and a bit more subdued from the political right (flags and shirts). I know that almost everything in Israel turns political (usually very quickly and very loudly) but I still hoped that this issue would transcend the political.

I also noticed the large number of associated organisations for helping various sub groups within the LGBTTTQQIAA spectrum. There was the group for gay youth, for lesbian youth, for bi people, transgender people, religious gay boys, religious gay girls, help for parents of gay kids and helping gay students. And those were only the ones I saw. I'm not sure why there are so many different organisations but I hope that they aren't fighting among themselves as the community needs solidarity and not infighting.

The good thing is that the parade was packed. There were lots of people who came to show their support even on such a hot day - about 25c in the shade and 30c in direct sun. That translates to about 86f. I was sun burned since I forgot to take proper precautions and I'm not used to spending that long in direct sunlight. The turnout was very diverse. I saw young and old, political left and right, secular and religious people, Jews and Arabs.

I hope that the tenets of pride will take greater and greater hold in our society so that some day parades like this will no longer be needed.

I'll leave you with some pictures I took with my phone of the parade.