Next time someone mentions Judeo-Christian values, point to this one, which comes more from the Judeo side, I imagine.
The liberal Israeli newspaper HaAretz published a photo over the weekend of an Israeli soldier kissing another man, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Mostly the paper was concerned with how hot the kiss was.
The picture was taken at Jerusalem’s Pride parade on July 29.
The article takes two paragraphs to describe the kiss graphically. “Both stand in a public place, giving a performance, showing how it’s done correctly, feeding him to become his own,” the author writes in Hebrew. But after describing the passionate kiss, he says “people stand around not even looking.”
“I can kiss the person I want the same way that another soldier can kiss whoever he wants,” the writer says. (I believe that’s an imagined quote, describing the scene, rather than something the solider actually told him.)
In the past there have been demonstrations against a Pride parade in Jerusalem. This year, bystanders hardly looked, he said. The last paragraph, however, talks about the older man with the mustache taking a picture of the two men. The writer wonders what the man captured in his camera and questions if he was even looking at the two men embracing since his eyes seem to be looking more at the writer than the men.
Israel eliminated its voluntary deferment for gays and lesbians to serve in the military in 1993. That same year, the U.S. began “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
My translation may be a little off because my Hebrew school classes prepared me to say things more like “you shall not eat flesh from a cloven-hoofed animal like a pig or a camel because it is an abomination” rather than “two men kissed each other passionately in Jerusalem to show straight people how to do it.” However, synagogues take note: Using articles like this may be a better way to keep students interested.