Pride, Israel, and Building Bridges Through Shlichut
There was one moment during the Pozez JCC Pride celebration on June 21 that I haven’t stopped thinking about.
The event was designed to celebrate Pride and provide a window into Israeli culture, art, and community. As the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s Community Shlicha in Northern Virginia, I was there to help bring the Israeli perspective into the evening through stories, culture, and personal connection. Guests explored our LGBTQ+ LOVE Archive, a photography exhibition featuring LGBTQ+ couples and families across Israel before settling in for a joyful drag performance by New York performers Matzah Belle Soup and Alvah Klempt.
It also happened to be Father’s Day.
After the performance, one of the drag queens came up to me and said:
“That dad is exactly like my dad.” She told me she immediately wanted to call him and wish him a Happy Father’s Day, telling him how grateful she was to have him as her father.
It was a small exchange, but it captured something much larger about the evening: community, connection, and the powerful impact of making people feel loved and supported for who they are.
Acceptance has a ripple effect. A supportive parent doesn’t only change the life of their own child. It shows others what love and belonging can look like. As she spoke about her father, I couldn’t help but think of my own, and of standing beside him at the Tel Aviv Pride Parade.
Where My Connection to Pride Began
My connection to Pride is deeply personal. Some of my earliest memories are of attending the Pride Parade with my father. I remember the colors, the music, the joy, and the sense that everyone belonged. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the political or social significance of those moments, but I understood what it felt like to be surrounded by people who were free to be themselves.
Years later, I met my wife, Hila, and together we built our life within a community that made space for us. As an Israeli, Pride reminds me that progress is possible and that the freedoms many of us experience today were built by people who came before us and fought for them.
And as Federation’s Shlicha, Pride is an opportunity to create spaces where people feel seen, welcomed, and connected—to each other, to their community, and to Israel.
How Shlichim Bring Israeli Stories to Community Life
As a Shlicha, my role is to share Israel through lived experience: through memory, through culture, through complexity, and through real people.
For me, Israel education is ultimately about people and stories.
This event was intentionally designed to create a joyful and welcoming space during a particularly complicated and emotionally heavy time. Guests walked through a photography exhibition featuring LGBTQ+ couples from across Israel while enjoying Israeli-inspired cocktails. We then welcomed two Jewish drag performers from New York who brought humor, creativity, and joy to the stage.
What I loved about this format was that people were learning about Israel without feeling like they were sitting in a lecture. They were experiencing Israeli culture, stories, and exploring questions of identity, family, and belonging in a natural and personal way.
Seeing Ourselves in the Story
One photograph in the exhibition held special meaning for me.
It was a picture of my wife, Hila, and me under our wedding chuppah.
I included it intentionally. Rather than seeing LGBTQ+ Israelis as distant figures, participants were seeing someone they already knew through community connection. They know our story, our relationship. And suddenly, Israel was not just a place being described. It was a place being lived by people in their own community. Most importantly, I wanted people to see LGBTQ+ Israelis not as statistics or symbols, but as human beings with stories that many of us can relate to.
In many ways, our photo served as a reminder that the stories being told throughout the exhibit are not just Israeli stories. They are the stories of real people, families, and communities.
Israel Is Not One Narrative
LGBTQ+ life in Israel, like Israel itself, is complex and multifaceted. What I hoped participants would take away is that LGBTQ+ life in Israel is not one story. It is many.
There are moments of progress and celebration. There are ongoing challenges. There are vibrant communities and everyday lives that continue to evolve.
But most importantly, there are people—real people—whose lives are shaped by the same things that shape all of ours: family, love, belonging, and the search for community.
Why Storytelling Builds Connection to Israel
People often encounter Israel through headlines. But headlines rarely leave room for nuance, humanity, or complexity.
Stories do.
When we engage with LGBTQ+ Israelis, or any Israelis, we are engaging with questions that are deeply familiar: Who are we? Where do we belong? How do we build families and communities? How do we create spaces where people feel seen?
These are universal questions. And that is why storytelling matters so deeply in Jewish communal life.
What Shlichim Make Possible
This is where Shlichim play a unique role, and where Federation’s investment in this work becomes so meaningful. Shlichim help transform Israel from something distant into something immediate and relatable.
We don’t only bring information. We bring ourselves—our memories, our cultures, our families, our contradictions, and our hopes. Through that, we create a bridge between Israel and the Greater Washington Jewish community. Federation’s support makes it possible for those bridges to exist. It allows Israeli voices to be present in community life in an ongoing, sustained way, as relationships. These relationships build strong Jewish identities for now and for the future.
This Gives Me Hope
What gives me hope is not just that people came to this event. It’s that they stayed.
In fact, they stayed long after the program officially ended. They stayed across generations, across identities, across perspectives.
They stayed for conversations. They came to celebrate Pride, but they also came to learn, to listen, and to connect—to each other, and to Israel.
In a time that often feels fragmented, that matters more than ever. Because community is not built through a single moment. It is built through repeated acts of showing up for one another.
And often, it begins with something very simple: creating a space where people feel welcome.
