June 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month around the world, and in Israel, it is being launched with the annual Jerusalem March of Pride and Tolerance, the most tense of the month’s events. Alona Nir Keren, a lesbian Reform rabbi who offers its opening blessing this year, has been part of the parade since it began in 2002.

In this episode of Haaretz Weekly, she shares her memories of the early years, when the men who are today the country’s national security and finance ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, waited for the revelers with donkeys on the parade route – “to send the message that homosexuality was the equivalent of sex with animals.”

“These people are mean and they are vicious,” she says in conversation with host Allison Kaplan Sommer. “They’re using fascist metaphors and ideas, and spreading hate. And this person [Ben-Gvir] is supposed to be in charge of my safety while I’m marching in this parade?”

Despite the challenges, Nir Keren says she is determined to raise children who can “celebrate their Judaism but also the fact that they have two moms and not be ashamed of it.”

Haaretz correspondent Linda Dayan also joins the podcast to describe the protests surrounding an event honoring U.S. author Abigail Shrier, who has written a book warning that a predatory transgender movement “is coming for” young girls.

Dayan then shares her experiences at similar events where North American social conservatives Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson addressed Israeli audiences, and her observation that “suddenly very American, very British and very Western ideas about gender identity are making their way here” – sparking “a kind of discussion different from those I had ever heard before” in Israel.

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