Soon-to-be-Likud MK Ohana hopes to make LGBT rights a bipartisan issue

By LAHAV HARKOV for JPost.com

Amir Ohana is the head and founder of the Likud Pride Group, an LGBT interest group within the leading party.

Amir Ohana did not wait to become an MK to start spending time in the Knesset.

Ohana, 39, with a life partner and twins, is expected to be sworn in as a lawmaker next week, instead of Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, who resigned in light of sexual misconduct allegations. But Ohana was already frequenting the halls of the Knesset and Likud faction meetings in recent months, preparing for when it would be his turn.

The head and founder of the Likud Pride Group, an LGBT interest group within the leading party, who will soon be the first openly gay Likud MK, spoke to The Jerusalem Post on Monday about his plans and expectations.

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How a gay Iranian poet fleeing persecution ‘fell in love’ with Israel

Payam Feili, 30, proudly defies his theocratic regime back home, hopes to move permanently to gay-friendly Tel Aviv

By Isaac Scharf for The Times of Israel

Payam Feili fled his native Iran last year because of the persecution he faced over his sexuality. Now, the gay poet has made a years-long dream come true — he is visiting Israel, Iran’s archenemy and a country known for its tolerance toward gays.

But the 30-year-old Feili stands out not only because of his arrival in a country so at odds with his own, but because of his professed adoration for the state some Iranian leaders have dubbed a cancer and have called to be wiped off the map.

“I still can’t believe I am here,” the soft-spoken Feili said in Farsi, speaking through his translator and the friend who brought him to Israel, Adi Liberman.

“All the stupid and ridiculous threats the regime issues against Israel have never influenced me and will never influence me,” he said.

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How I faced the challenges of coming out as an LGBT father

by Lawrence Cohen for JewishNewsOnline

The signs were there early on. One Chanukah, around 1982, when the child was three or four, I bought her the best dolls house in the toy shop. After some initial curiosity, it was discarded and sat gathering dust until we eventually gave it away. Later came the insistence on wearing football shorts as her foundation garment of choice, even under the pretty velvety dress she wore to her brother’s barmitzvah. And she was the best at climbing ropes in her primary school.

As for me, I was happy to have a tomboy for a daughter. Going in for a tackle in an 11-a-side football game [the other 21 were boys] indicated a spiritedness rather than a misplaced sense of identity. So what? The child continued to exhibit a love of furry stuffed animals and enjoyed going on play dates and sleepovers with girls.

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How Jeff Became Yaacov Became Jessica Became Yiscah

In this episode of Israel Story, Yiscah Smith tells the story of her decades-long struggle to live authentically

By Israel Story for Tablet Magazine

Yiscah Smith is 64 years old. She lives in Nahlaot, in Jerusalem. But her journey to this Orthodox-meets-hipster neighborhood took her through what seems like four lifetimes. She was born in Long Island, as Jeff Smith, to a Conservative Jewish family. Jeff married a woman, they became more religious, made aliyah, and had six children. Jeff became Yaacov. A few years later, Yaacov’s identity began to unravel, presenting a terrible dilemma: What do you do when you realize that in order to be true to yourself, you have to shatter everything around you, including the lives of those you love most?

This is Yiscah’s story, as told to reporter Molly Livingstone. Yiscah is the author of Forty Years in the Wilderness: My Journey to Authentic Living and was a popular speaker at TEDxJerusalem in May 2015.

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