Imagine your Shabbat table.
Women and men sit around him.
Young people, adults and the elderly.
Toddlers and children.
Secular and religious.
Jews and non-Jews.
If you will, family.
If you will, community.
There is room for everyone around the Israeli Shabbat table.
The tradition brought by communities from Islamic countries is just that.
This was the case at the table of the Dabush tribe in Ashkelon, where I grew up.
To be a part of this Sabbath table one has to accept one principle: everyone has a place.
Those who do not accept this principle, want to turn the Israeli Shabbat table on its occupants.
Those who are not willing to sit down just because there are too many women, wearing kippahs, LGBTs or Arabs, make this table impossible. From there the splits, boycotts and conflicts become a regular thing.
The head of the Mitzpe Ramon yeshiva, Rabbi Zvi Kostiner, tried to turn the Shabbat table on its occupants.
He called for the expulsion of LGBT people from workplaces. "Homosexuals at home!" He shouted. According to statistics, in his yeshiva about a tenth of the young people are gay. Towards those who are not visible to him?
In Netivot, such matters are taken seriously.
There are those who violently attacked locals who sought to organize a pride event in the city.
After threats and stone-throwing, the incident was canceled.
At a rural school in the Sderot area, LGBT students were attacked. Pride flags were torn, and students were brutally beaten because they wanted to mark Pride Day at the school.
This quick cluster shows us where we need work;
Where should we fight for our young men and women to be part of the Shabbat table.
The pride parades in the center have become self-evident and play an important role, but it could very well be that in the peripheries the importance of standing alongside LGBTs becomes even greater.
When the everyday reality of young men and women jeopardizes their place around the metaphorical Sabbath table, we must take a stand.
When Yigal Guetta was forced to choose between a family and his place in the Knesset, he chose courage.
This is a real law of souls.
The repression of youth outside the family and community may make them detached youth.
At the end of the continuum it is a deterioration to prostitution and a real danger to life.
I am optimistic.
In the end, the vast majority of us do not share the violence against LGBT people, and know that they have a place within us; that if we begin to doubt anyone who does not align with bullying, there will be no safe place for any of us. Now this is our test - For many good years.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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