In the United States, the watershed event for equal rights for LGBT people was the Stonewall Inn riots in New York City of June 28, 1969.
In Israel, a more peaceful occurrence had similar effects — the 1998 winning of the Eurovision Song Contest by Israeli transgender singer Dana International (aka Sharon Cohen, born Yaron Cohen).
A “wave of people” in both countries “came out of the closet” or began to as a result of these events. In Israel, they included a 17-year-old named Elad Strohmayer.
Today, Strohmayer is Israel’s deputy consul general to the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. On July 29, Strohmayer presented “Confessions of a Gay Israeli Diplomat” at the Helfaer Community Service Building, sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center and its LGBTQ outreach and inclusion initiative.
He began with the Eurovision contest because of how much it meant to him personally. “I grew up in a Zionist home” and “I knew I wanted to do something for my country” as a career, he said. But he was afraid that his sexual orientation would prevent that and be “a source of shame.”
But Dana International’s win proved “a crucial moment,” he said. It was not only a source of national pride, but it sent a message that “I don’t need to hide anymore” and it thereby “opened a door for me,” he said.
Strohmayer then provided a summary of Israel’s LGBT rights history. Overall, “Israel is a pluralistic society,” but there have been and still are struggles over this issue, he said.
From the time of its independence in 1948, Israel inherited the laws of the British Mandate as much of its civil law, and those laws prohibited homosexual activity, Strohmayer said. However, those laws were seldom enforced. “No one went to jail just for being gay,” he said.
Nevertheless, not until 1988 did the Knesset officially repeal that law. That act “started the revolution of gay rights in Israel,” Strohmayer said.
The following year, some Israelis established an organization called TEHILA, which is both a Hebrew word for “praise” and a Hebrew acronym meaning support for parents of LGBT people. This proved significant for Strohmayer because his mother eventually joined this group, he said.
In that same year, Israel’s Supreme Court heard a case in which a gay employee of Israel’s national airline, El Al, demanded that his partner receive the same free airline tickets that a heterosexual employee’s spouse would. The court found in the couple’s favor.
Then in 1992, the Knesset passed what Strohmayer called an “equal opportunities at work act,” which prohibited discrimination by sexual orientation as well as by gender and race.
From then on, Strohmayer said, the development of LGBT rights in Israel has been “a mix of Supreme Court rulings and legislation” over the years, plus some social and cultural actions. Highlights include:
• The repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the Israel Defense Forces in 1993. “You can be openly gay in the Israeli military with no fear,” which meant that when Strohmayer was in the IDF in 1999, “it was not an issue.”
• The sending abroad of the first openly gay Israeli diplomat in 1995, which paved the way for Strohmayer. Moreover, “since then, there are many,” including full ambassadors, he said.
• Israel’s first gay pride parades were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in 1998. Today, 13 such events are held “all over the country,” Strohmayer said.
• Israel also sent its first delegation to the quadrennial international Gay Games in 1998. This participation also has personal significance for Strohmayer; he won a gold medal for sailing in the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland, Ohio.
• In 2002, the Knesset seated its first openly gay member, Uzi Even.
By 2006, Strohmayer said that gay couples have “almost all the rights straight couples have.” However, that “almost” is still a struggle and includes such issues as performing gay marriages, which like non-religious civil marriages cannot be performed in Israel, he said.
That struggle is “an ongoing process,” he said. Strohmayer has contributed to that in part though his marriage to business executive and photographer Oren Ben-Yosef in Philadelphia this past January. Officiating were Mayor Michael Nutter and Rabbi Michael Beals of Congregation Beth Shalom in Wilmington, Del.
“When people know us, they know there is nothing to fear,” Strohmayer said. He acknowledged that change will come in small steps, and “sharing our story is the way to change people’s minds.”
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