Jerusalem – Pro-Gay Video By Israeli Singer Featuring Orthodox Children In Shul Pulled From YouTube

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    Jerusalem – A video promoting Tel Aviv’s Gay Pride Parade featuring Israeli transsexual star Dana International dancing suggestively in a synagogue in front of children has been taken offline after the parents of one of the youngsters claimed they did not provide consent to participate.

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    The family, believing the video to be part of an “innocent” tourism campaign, complained after seeing it on national TV. The controversy comes on the eve of the parade, an annual celebration expected to attract over 120,000 people on Friday.

    The two-minute clip featuring Dana’s new single, “Kids Are Much Fun,” in which the singer, wearing a blond wig and long black dress, poses suggestively as a boy meant to be her son reads from the Torah during his bar mitzvah, a holy Jewish rite of passage.

    The video was filmed in a Tel Aviv synagogue, using 15 boys who were recruited from a religious school in a nearby suburb.

    The video’s director, Omer Tobi, said the students were picked by a nephew of Dana’s manager who is the main character in the video. While Tobi said the theme of the video was clear from the outset, the parents of one of the boys said they were misled.

    A relative of the sixth grader said he was invited to participate in a short film “simply” about a bar mitzvah intended to promote tourism in Israel.

    “That’s all what we knew, that’s what we agreed for him to participate (in). Nothing more, nothing less,” the relative said. “We never signed anything.” He spoke on condition of anonymity in order to protect the boy’s identity.

    The relative, a religious Jew, said he knew Dana would be in the video, but was shocked to learn of the larger context only after it aired on an Israeli entertainment show Sunday evening.

    “Kids should not be involved in a gay parade in any way, religious or not religious. Because of me being religious, it’s more offensive,” he said, adding, “We thought it was (going to be) so innocent.”

    Parade organizers said they moved quickly to protect the identity of the children once they were contacted by the boy’s parents. They have requested that the children’s faces be blurred before the video is shown again. In the meantime, a YouTube link to the video is now marked “private.”

    Tobi, the video’s director, said at least three adults, and a Tel Aviv municipality employee, were on the set to supervise throughout the filming. He speculated that parents may have complained after being pressured by religious leaders or the school. But after receiving the complaint, Dana’s manager blocked the video where it originally appeared on YouTube.

    “It was very important for me not to lie or to pass incorrect information to the other side,” Tobi said, though he acknowledged that he knew the video might cause some controversy.

    Tobi also directed last year’s Tel Aviv Gay Pride video, which raised eyebrows by showing Middle Eastern-looking men kissing passionately on the beach.

    Dana’s manager, Shay Kerem, defended the video, saying it was meant to challenge the belief that homosexuality is unacceptable in society and in a house of worship. “You can’t say that God belongs just to straight people,” Kerem said.

    Dana — born in Tel Aviv as Yaron Cohen — achieved international fame in 1998 after winning the Eurovision song contest with the song “Diva.” The victory stirred a backlash in religious circles back home, but she has gone on to a successful career as a singer and entertainer.

    Her success has helped transform Tel Aviv into a mecca for gay pride and culture, and the annual pride parade is its main symbol and tourist attraction. It is the largest event of its kind in the Middle East.


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    10 Comments
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    mythoughts
    mythoughts
    9 years ago

    They should keep on having these parades. It exposes them for being the freaks they are.

    9 years ago

    This man/and or/ women has a lot of nerve! To take children from a religion that disagrees with your way of life and manipulate them to be in your video by saying it’s for ‘tourism’ is appalling. This is a new low even for them!

    9 years ago

    This is what follows from Open Orthodoxy.

    How horrible that a city in E”Y is primarily known for its deviancy.

    9 years ago

    Seems to be obvious that the Homos want to exploit children.

    9 years ago

    This strikes me as disgusting. This is a blatant attempt to open the door of an innocent childhood to the hate and obscure reluctance of a “gay” partnership. I do support the right of a man to have incessant dreams of lost value if that is his privacy in his home, but I do not think that the world needs to be recruited. This is asinine and no one with an understanding of human affairs should consider that recruiting children to stand in for the “democracy” of illicit toeva affairs should be just.

    Clearly this is an affront to Torah Values as well as childhood innocence and human discussion.

    Good that the parents discovered the video.

    A bar Mitzvah is not a propaganda agent for human terror.

    Never Again.

    ActualJew
    ActualJew
    9 years ago

    Disgusting exploitation of children. This thing should not be around children.
    Now will the rabbis stand up to pro pedphiles in the community?

    hmmmm
    hmmmm
    9 years ago

    Chinuch הציונת at its best.

    HankM
    HankM
    9 years ago

    Why don’t normal people start a “straight pride” movement? Answer is, sexuality is not something to flaunt or celebrate. I don’t care what your do in your house, but don’t bring it on the street where you infect innocent children