LGBTQ history in Israel
[1][2][3][4] Debate has since centred on recognition of same-sex partnerships and the rights they confer, including inheritance, residency, and the adoption of children.
[5] Beginning in 1882, Ashkenazi Jewish migrants from the Russian Empire fled to Ottoman Palestine in a series of waves to escape rising antisemitism, encouraged by Perez Smolenskin's suggestion that Jews make aliyah to Israel in large movements.
It was revealed that in Palestine there existed many ways of “unnatural” sexual expression including sodomy between school boys and acts of lesbian love which were blamed on influences from nearby countries such as Syria and Egypt.
[9] In the 1950s, an Israeli woman by the name of Rina Natan was arrested for cross dressing, this entailed that she was wearing female clothes while being of biological male gender.
She gave transgender rights a sphere of influence in activism and her actions and story would lead the Israeli government to legally recognize and permit sex reassignment later in 1986.
[12] In 1960, Rina Ben-Menahem self-published her first book, "הדווקאים", describing the homosexual and lesbian scene in Israel from her first person acquaintance.
[13] In 1963, Justice Cohn denounced sodomy laws, stating that they were outdated and that consensual sexual acts were neither criminal nor morally wrong.
Many of the religious leaders of Jerusalem's Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities had arrived to a rare consensus asking the municipal government to cancel the permit of the paraders.
During the parade, a Haredi Jewish man, Yishai Schlissel, attacked three people with a kitchen knife and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime.
The rally planned afterwards was cancelled due to an unrelated national fire brigade strike which prevented proper permits from being issued.
[18] The incident has been deplored by many organizations and government officials, such as the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Shimon Peres.
An Israeli family court on March 17, 2002, turned down an application from a lesbian couple to have their partnership union declared legal.
The Nazareth judges ruled that the term "man and woman" as spelled out in Israel's inheritance law also includes same sex couples.
The acting president of the Nazareth District Court, Menachem Ben-David, issued the minority opinion, arguing that the legal text should not be interpreted "contrary to the lingual significance."
In December 2004, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that the government cannot deport the Colombian partner of a gay Israeli man.
[19] In March 2008, Israel's Interior Ministry granted a gay Palestinian from Jenin a rare residency permit to live with his partner of 8 years in Tel Aviv after he said his sexuality put his life in danger in the West Bank.
[21] In July 2015, Yishai Schlissel, an Orthodox Jew released from prison after spending 10 years in jail for stabbing participants in a 2005 LGBT pride event in Jerusalem, attacked six marchers with a knife.
