My First Love Parade

You can never be bored living in Tel Aviv. There is always some festival, exhibit or event going on. This past weekend was a gay parade. On Friday morning Ariel and I woke up and heard on the news that they were closing various streets at 12 noon for the “Love Parade.” Seeing as we had no real plans for the day, besides the usual Friday brunch, we decided to check it out.

Around noon we headed over to Rabin Square where the parade was set to start and the city was already towing cars off the now closed streets. Slowly people started to trickle in wearing various costumes from fur legs to g-strings, high hells to flip flops. This was definitely the place to people watch. There were various groups that held banners including the left-wing political party Meretz, family members of homosexuals and gay marriage rights. There were men in drag, people with body paint and a group of guys wearing pink sequenced cowboy hats. There were also two floats: one from a gay bar and another from the city of Tel Aviv. After a series of short speeches the music started and people started dancing/walking in the parade.

It was a hot day and Ariel and I did not come prepared. He ended up buying a pink flowered hat to protect his head since those were the only ones around.

I have never been to a gay parade before, but it was exactly as I had imagined it. On one hand it is nice to see a city that is so accepting and welcoming to that community. On the other hand, you don’t forget how other cities, namely Jerusalem, are far from accepting and every year there is a big debate as to whether the parade will take place there. Last year there was supposed to be an international parade that was moved to a close stadium for “security reasons.”

This week gay parade… next week?

The picture above was taken by my friend Idan. Check out his blog (link is on the right-hand side of the screen) for more pictures.