Thousands Honor Tel Aviv Gay Center Shooting Victims

Over the weekend thousands turned out to honor those killed and wounded during the prior week's terror attack at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv - even though threats had been made that terror attacks might be made against those attending the rally for the shooting victims. As with Christian fanatics and Islamic fundamentalist extremists, ultra conservative Jewish groups have turned religion into something evil and motivated solely by fear and hate. I am happy to see that decent people refused to be intimidated by the anti-gay hate merchants. Here are some highlights from Haaretz.com:

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One week after a gunman entered a center for gay and lesbian youth and opened fire, killing two people and wounding 12, tens of thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Saturday to commemorate the victims and show solidarity. The rally was to be addressed by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, President Shimon Peres and Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, as well as family members of the victims and members of Israel's gay community.

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The rally was preceded by a number of threats against the gay community. Earlier Saturday, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces' Nahal Haredi unit was arrested on suspicion that he had threatened rally organizers on an online forum. While in custody, the soldier confessed to making the threats. Meanwhile, operators of transportation to the Tel Aviv rally received telephone threats from an anonymous caller who warned that grenades will be hurled at attendants of the rally.

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A similar threat was received by organizers of transportation from Haifa. According to Gal Zberger, who organized a Peace Now bus to take demonstrators from Haifa to Tel Aviv, "I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. He asked for details regarding the bus. I gave him the details and asked for his name. He said 'the one with the grenade.' I asked what he meant, and he said 'today you will get hit with grenades, not just guns.'"

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I believe that there is a God or higher being - what must he/she/it think of the horrors done in the name of God?

Terror Attack on Israeli Gay Teen Center

In yet another example of what is likely religious based bigotry - and an example of the fact that anti-gay rhetoric does lead to violence - a gunman attacked a gay youth club center in Tel Aviv, typically considered a non-religiously dogmatic and tolerant city. Two were killed (one of the dead, a 26 year old youth director, is at left) in the attack and 13 or more wounded. It is sad that a place that was to provide a safe haven turned into a place of carnage. But then, religious based bigotry and hate has a many centuries long history of causing death and carnage. Once again it makes me wonder whether a religion free world - or at least a world where everyone was free to believe as they want and live their lives without bigots interfering - might not be a huge improvement. Events like this also are a reminder that LGBT citizens are at risk for random attacks by the religious motivated nutcases. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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Israel's gay community was rocked on Sunday by the killing of two people in a homosexual and lesbian youth center and the possibility they fell victim to a hate crime in the Jewish state's most freewheeling city. "The biggest shock is to think that it happened in Tel Aviv, which is the most tolerant city in the country," said Avi Sofer, a gay rights activist.
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Witnesses said a masked gunman clad in black opened fire on Saturday night in a basement club belonging to the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association, which was hosting a weekly event for teenage gays. The attacker killed a 26-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl and wounded 13 people before fleeing, hospital officials said. "He simply fired all over the place," Or Gil, 16, told the YNet news website. "At first I thought it was prank, or a toy gun. After the killings, it was quiet, completely silent and then people came to help the wounded."

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Police said they were still searching for the attacker and that the shooting was not an anti-Israeli attack by a Palestinian . . . If the incident proves to be a hate crime, it will mark the most serious attack against the gay community in Israel's history.

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Although coastal, cosmopolitan Tel Aviv has a bustling gay scene, open homosexuality is less welcome in conservative areas. Annual gay pride parades in Jerusalem meet with often violent protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews, who view homosexuality as an abomination against God.

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Four years ago, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed three parade participants in Jerusalem. They survived. The attacker is serving a 12-year prison term. Nitzan Horowitz, an openly gay legislator, said he had no doubt there was a connection between the latest killings and what he termed incitement against the gay community in Israel.