Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai joined members of the LGBT community in Tel Aviv park yesterday to unveil a new memorial dedicated specifically to the LGBT victims of the Holocaust.
The concrete triangle-shaped plaque is said to resemble pink triangles gays were forced to wear in concentration camps during World War II, and reads “In Memory of those persecuted by the Nazi regime for their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
A lesser-known target of Adolf Hilter’s Third Reich, gays and lesbians were sent to concentration camps alongside Jews during World War II in an effort to cure what Hitler believed to be “a public health crisis.” Of more than 15,000 members of the LGBT community targeted by the Gestapo, more than half were killed or became the subject of experiments that aimed to “cure” homosexuality.
“I think in Israel today it is very important to show that a human being is a human being is a human being,” said Huldai. “It shows that we are not only caring for ourselves but for everybody who suffered. These are our values — to see everyone as a human being.”
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The memorial, which sits beneath a rainbow flag and a flag of Israel, is the first in the country dedicated to non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust and joins similar monuments in Amsterdam, Berlin, San Francisco, and Sydney. “The significance here is that we are recognizing that there were other victims of the Holocaust, not just Jews,” said Tel Aviv councilman Eran Lev.
Check out more photos of the memorial and service over at the Advocate.
fagburn
“I think in Israel today it is very important to show that a human being is a human being is a human being,” said Huldai. “It shows that we are not only caring for ourselves but for everybody who suffered. These are our values — to see everyone as a human being.”
Palestinians might disagree.
ZaneStuart
@fagburn:
In all fairness, he did say “in Isreal”. Of course, if they get their way, there won’t ever be a Palestine or Palestinians to be concerned about. “Kristallnacht” in Palestine happens on a fairly regular basis.
Lovely of them to recognise they weren’t the only ones tortured and killed in the camps though.
DShucking
That’s great and all but what does this have to do with Tom Daley?
Daniel-Reader
It is great they are remembering the victims. Now everyone just has to remember the lessons: When the rightwing Christians committed the atrocities of the Holocaust their proclaimed better nature was their sanctimonious excuse for harming others. So never let a religious leader or politician get away with violating your human rights – otherwise they will just keep doing it. Hold those individuals personally responsible for every human rights violation they perpetuate. Accept no excuse or obstacle. End human rights violations.
tada-no
@ZaneStuart: Stop being a drama queen. If Israelis wanted to wipe out Palestinians as you say, they would have done it by now like the many Arab internal ethnic cleansings that took place starting from Jordanian king killing 20,000 Palestinians. More Palestinians have died at the hands of their own since 2008 than from Israelis thanks to Hamas v. Fatah infighting. I’m sure Palestinians have a lot to say about a memorial to gays.
Sumidagawa
@ZaneStuart: In all fairness, there are around 2 million Palestinians living within Israel (1967 borders). The Israeli government usually calls them “Israeli Arabs,” but this term covers up the fact that they live under a profoundly undemocratic, apartheid-like system of unequal rights, which specifically limits non-Jewish citizens of Israel from owning property, achieving adequate political representation, marrying Jewish Israelis, reuniting with and visiting their families, and much more.
Meanwhile, the new memorial for LGBT victims of the Holocaust is of course another example of Israeli pinkwashing.
Dr. Mo
That is patently false.
There is no such thing as unequal rights, all citizens of Israel have exactly the same rights. There is no apartheid. There are no separate buses for Israeli Arabs, no segregation of any kind. If you had ever seen the place with your two eyes you’d know that.
hudson
planning a trip to Israel and in particular Tel Aviv in 2015. We’re travelling with a Jewish friend that has spent extensive time there- it’ll be interesting to see it through the eyes of an unbiased outsider familiar with the lay of the land.
Sumidagawa
@Dr. Mo: Now *that’s* patently false! Even the U.S. State Department disagrees with you: “[There is] institutionalized legal and societal discrimination against Israel’s Christian, Muslim and Druze citizens” (U.S. State Department’s 2005 Annual Human Rights Report). And what about the Right of Return? And what about the 430-mile apartheid wall, some of which is made of thick panels of concrete over 25 feet high? The idea that there is “no segregation of any kind” ought to be censored by the moderators of this site–there’s a real danger that someone might believe such lies!
Teresa F. Baldwin
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ZaneStuart
@tada-no:
You said:
“If Israelis wanted to wipe out Palestinians as you say, they would have done it by now like the many Arab internal ethnic cleansings that took place starting from Jordanian king killing 20,000 Palestinians. More Palestinians have died at the hands of their own since 2008 than from Israelis thanks to Hamas v. Fatah infighting.”
That is not a valid argument for Israel’s actions in Palestine.
I used Kristallnacht in quotations because I wasn’t being literal. If I’d intended to be literal I would have used “the systematic and forceful removal of entire populations from villages and said villages razed”.
When Palestine was partitioned in 1947(and the subsequent formalization of the State of Israel in 1948), Israel was given a little more than 50% of Palestine. Through military strikes, war, and outright theft, Israel now consists of more than 90% of what was Palestine.
The Israeli government’s most common excuse for these human rights abuses is eradicating terrorist cells, that they are fighting for their own survival.
It stopped being about the survival of the State of Israel a very long time ago.
A memorial to LGBTQ folk killed in The Holocaust during World War II will not change that fact.
Kangol
On top of the extreme anti-Palestinian history, don’t forget how Israel is treating the black African refugees and migrants.
The Nation: Israel’s New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPxv4Aff3IA
Anti-African Racism in Israel
http://www.davidsheen.com/racism/
It’s housing them in a giant camp in the Negev. They have been physically attacked and driven from their homes, rounded up and detained for extended periods, and denied any possibility of residency.
The African Jews (the Ethiopian Jews) aren’t treated so well either. That’s not just hearsay, that’s fact.
AuntieChrist
It would be nice if we could put this all into a neat little box and blame religion for all the ills of the world and there is plenty of blame to go around…But the fact of the matter is, people are just intolerant selfish assholes…But who cares anyway they gave us queers a cookie…Yippee..!!!
Catharine A. Rumfelt
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Dr. Mo
@Sumidagawa:
No different from the institutionalized racism right here in the US against blacks. The fact of the matter is that Israel is a very average Western democracy with average levels of racism. Far less than you find in places like Switzerland and in many, MANY states in this country.
I don’t see why Israel has to apologize for erecting a wall on its border. The United States has a fence just like it along its border with Mexico, Spain has one around its African cities, Morocco has one on its border with the Sahara. Dozens of countries have identical barriers and yet you single out only one for criticism. Now why would that be?
It is so typical of antisemites and bigots like yourself to obfuscate and lie. Again – there is not a single law granting additional rights to Israeli Jews, there is not a single law that curtails the rights of Arab Israelis. Plainly, there is no Apartheid in Israel. Arab Israelis go to the same beaches as Jews, eat at the same restaurants, play at the same parks, ride the same buses, attend the same universities. It is UNTRUE that Arab Israelis are not allowed to own land or property, it is UNTRUE that there are laws preventing them from achieving political representation. Right now there are 12 Arab Israelis in parliament representing 3 different Arab parties, as well as an Arab MP from a left Jewish party.
seaki
@Dr. Mo: PLEASE STOP throwing the ‘anti-semetic’ come back at people just because you DON’T like what they have to say. Its very 1970’s and we are ALL gay men that would not mind a gold band on a hand from a hot hairy Heb that loved us as much as we adored the hell out of him! Piss off! Heck for a wonderful man like that I’LL CONVERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,……( did I mention that I would convert) SO PISS OFF!
Sumidagawa
@Dr. Mo: Your comments are becoming more and more laughable, as others have also noticed.
If the situation in Israel is indeed “[n]o different from the institutionalized racism right here in the US against blacks,” then that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of Israel! Racism in the US is an evil ideology, developed and honed over centuries of the forced migration, genocide, enslavement, segregation, impoverishment, incarceration, deportation, execution and state assassination of people of color.
What you’re saying about Israel is a bit like someone arrested for rape saying, “Well, I did rape the person, but there was a person once in a different country who I heard murdered someone, so you should definitely let me go without further ado, and chase down the murderer instead, because murder is a worse crime than rape.” Crimes elsewhere do NOT excuse the crimes committed by Israel!
If Israel’s apartheid wall *was* in fact along its border, that would be one thing, and similar to the US-Mexico border wall, as you argue. But of course the Israeli wall is *not* along its border; it snakes through Palestine, miles to the east of the 1967 border. I single out this wall for criticism because it is the only one you mention that is not a border wall.
But you seem to think I’m the only one to focus criticism on this wall. That’s not true. For instance, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the current wall’s removal. The United Nations General Assembly calls it “illegal.”
I support the right of around five million Palestinian refugees to return to land inside the 1967 borders of Israel, just like Jewish people are offered the “right of return.” Equal rights. End Israeli colonialism. Free Palestine!
Dr. Mo
Of course you do. Because when it comes to it, what you really are for is the end of the Jewish State.
Well over 90% of the barrier runs right along the Green Line. Whatever small percentage does not separates parts of the West Bank that Israel will keep in any final agreement. Settlement blocks that were Jewish before 1948, conquered by Jordan, and made Judenrein by force.
It is UNTRUE that the Supreme Court has ruled the wall illegal. It has ordered rerotuing in very specific cases. Par for the course then. When in doubt, make things up!
This bit about the refugees also merits some analysis. All refugees of all conflicts in the World are protected by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, a body that concerns itself with resettling and solving their refugee status. But not the Palestinians, nope… they are represented by a separate agency (UNWRA) with a specific mandate NOT to solve the refuggee issue. In fact, if you were a Palestinian refugee, your children and grandchildren inherit your status regardless of where you live. Paris? New York? Upper middle class? Yup, still a refugee. Anything and everything to undermine the only state in the region where you wouldn’t be lynched just for being. NUTS!
Sumidagawa
@Dr. Mo: You have no evidence to suggest that I want “an end to” Israel, because no such evidence exists. When in doubt, you make things up, not even in support of whatever your argument is, but simply as another personal and baseless attack on me.
I never said the Israeli Supreme Court deemed the wall “illegal.” You also made this up about me.
Living in Paris or New York, having never set foot in the Middle East, and having an ancestor who last lived in the Middle East 2,000 years ago: Jewish people in such a situation can freely relocate to Israel or the Occupied Territories, displacing Palestinians currently living there. That’s not fair.
No doubt you will respond using the tired and fruitless tactic of both attacking me personally on entirely spurious grounds and half-heartedly drawing attention to injustice (or what you claim to be injustice) in other contexts. This tactic of yours is meant to detract from Israeli crimes, but it doesn’t work. When it comes done to it, you can’t provide a solid justification for what’s going on. This is my last contribution to this thread.
Dr. Mo
LOL, the man screaming for help from the moderators now wants to talk about baseless attacks. You are hilarious!
“For instance, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the current wall’s removal.”
You did write that, didn’t you? Own it then. It is UNTRUE, it did NOT order the current wall’s removal, it is yet another made-up fact you casually mentioned. Along with the nonsense about Israeli Arabs not being allowed to own property and the whole Apartheid BS.
Also, calling for 5 million Arabs to “return” to Israel is the same as calling for an end to Israel. There are close to 200 countries in this World, 56 of them are Muslim, 22 are Arab, and one is an Arab country created on 76% of Palestine, of overwhelming Palestinian majority. And what you want is to put an end to the Jewish majority in the one country in the whole World that is the home of the Jewish people? To create a second State of Palestinian majority, the 23rd Arab country? And you are not calling for an end to the State of Israel? LOL! Double talk and jive homie, that’s all you got. Nice try though 😉
Dr. Mo
@Sumidagawa:
BTW – the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahim. That is, Jews of Middle Eastern origin. Along with 750,000 Arab refugees, the war of 1948 also created 700,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries and Iran.
But those don’t count, right?