Tel Aviv Pride (Hebrew: מצעד הגאווה בתל אביב, Arabic: فخر تل أبيب)
is a week-long series of events in Tel Aviv which takes place on the second week of June,
as part of the international observance of Gay Pride Month. The key event, taking place on the Friday, is the Pride Parade itself which attracts over 250,000 attendees.
As of June 2019, it is the largest LGBT Parade in Asia.
Historical background
Gay rights in Israel have progressed drastically since the years following the British Mandate over Palestine, when homosexuality was outlawed. The clause stated
that “every man who allowed another man to have intercourse with him risked up to ten years of imprisonment.” In the 1960s, the Israeli Minister of Internal
Affairs, Dr. Yosef Burg, described the phrase of “homosexual Jews” as an oxymoron given the biblical rejection of queer behavior. This provides a framework for the
negative perceptions of homosexuality amongst Israeli politicians in the past. The legal code in Israel that once outlawed homosexuality was changed on March 22, 1988, effectively decriminalizing being gay.
Pride Parade
The first event that many consider to be the first ‘Pride’ event to take place in Israel was a protest in 1979 at Rabin Square. The first time that
the Tel Aviv Pride Parade took place was in 1993.
The parade assembles and begins at Meir Park, then travels along Bugrashov Street, Ben Yehuda Street and Ben Gurion Boulevard, and culminates in a party in
Charles Clore Park on the seafront. There were 200,000 participants reported in 2016, making it one of the largest in the world. The parade
is the biggest pride celebration in continental Asia, drawing more than 200,000 people in 2017, approximately 30,000 of them tourists. There were more than 250,000 participants reported in both 2018 and 2019. As of June 2019, it is the largest LGBTQ event in Asia and also the first city in Israel to host a Pride parade.
Smaller annual pride parades are also held in Jerusalem, Haifa and Be’er Sheva.
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