After weeks of uncertainty, Tel Aviv LGBTQ+ Pride set for June 25

This will be the first time the parade has taken place in two years, after it was cancelled last year due to coronavirus restrictions.

JUNE 7, 2021 16:27

TEL AVIV teems with Pride celebrants in pre-corona days: ‘It was two full weeks of a fun carnival. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI) — TEL AVIV teems with Pride celebrants in pre-corona days: ‘It was two full weeks of a fun carnival.

(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)

After weeks of confusion about whether or not the Tel Aviv Pride March would return this year, the Tel Aviv Municipality announced on Monday that the traditional event will take place on June 25.

This will be the first time the parade has taken place in two years after it was canceled last year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

While over 250,000 people attended the parade in 2019, the event will likely be at least somewhat smaller this year due to the inability of many people to arrive from abroad, unlike in past years.

The parade will feature party trucks and DJs and will start at noon from Tel Aviv’s Bograshov Beach, ending at a huge party featuring performances by leading artists at Charles Clore Park. The parade will be somewhat shorter than the traditional route, which usually begins on Bograshov Street near Dizengoff Center.

“Pride events in Tel Aviv-Jaffa are a long-standing tradition, centered on a message of equality, acceptance, and human and civil rights,” said Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai. “Tel Aviv-Jaffa represents a warm home for all communities residing here and is proud to be a groundbreaking city in its approach to the LGBTQ community and a source of international inspiration. This year, more than ever, we will celebrate together, march together, and fight together for equality.”

“The Pride Parade is our cry for equality and a clear symbol of our demand for a free and democratic country for every person – a message that is especially appropriate and important now,” said Etai Pinkas Arad, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council member in charge of LGBTQ affairs.

“The LGBTQ community in Tel Aviv-Jaffa counts tens of thousands of members and, together with tens of thousands more from across the country, we will protest but also celebrate the achievements we have made during our struggle – which is a struggle for life,” added Arad. “This year, the community will return to the streets in great numbers. Next year, I look forward to being joined by our friends and partners from across the world.”

A number of other Pride events will take place in Tel Aviv and throughout Israel, including Wigstock, a drag festival, and the Subculture art festival at the LGBTQ+ community center in Meir Garden which is set to be demolished at the end of June and rebuilt.

The announcement comes nearly two months after a number of LGBTQ+ activists announced that they were organizing an independent Pride Parade in Tel Aviv in response to the entry of LGBTQ+-phobic MKs into the Knesset after the April elections.

At the time, the Tel Aviv Municipality expressed outrage at the unofficial event, with officials seeing the annual pride event as a sort of “brand” belonging to the city.

“The Pride Parade has been produced and run by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality for about 20 years,” municipality officials told Channel 12, adding that while every group and organization has the right to protest, “there seems to be a deficiency and even a misleading of the public in the branding [of the event] as the ‘Pride Parade.’”

A senior official in the municipality told Channel 12 that the planned event is “plagiarism, not a parade.”

“The parade as we know it is currently forbidden in the State of Israel,” added the official. “If the state allows it, we will obviously do it and we will be able to get it up within a few weeks. It is not a registered brand like Coca-Cola, but when you say the Tel Aviv Pride Parade you know what it is – and it is not what this group is doing. They can call it pizza, it will not turn it into pizza. The parade is our brand.”

The activists announced on Monday that they would be joining with the municipal parade, instead of holding an independent event, and called on “everyone who cares” to come and march.

More information will be published before the event.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.