About a week ago I saw a wonderful dialogue between Yaron London and Dana International. Dana who won the Eurovision singing contest 1998, was born a male. She was a leader in Israel and liberated the Gay community in Israel as far as public opinion about the legitimacy of the gay community.
I could not help my self but remember the derogatory comments made by leading Rabbinical authorities about Gay relationships in Israel in the last couple of weeks. As it happens as we are going to celebrate Israel 70th Anniversary next week we are in between important dates:
On April 6, 1928, almost 100 years ago which was the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of Alberct Durer, the Reichstag in Berlin and the city council in Nuremberg put aside politics and dogmas to honor the artist whom Germany loved best.
Durer also “painted himself as a youth garbed and coiffured almost like a woman, proud yet diffident, distrusting and defying the world. In 1498, still vain of his features, and now also of his beard, he painted his portrait as a young patrician richly dressed, with tasseled cap and long brown curls; this is one of the great self-portraits of all time.” (The Reformation: The Story of Civilization, Volume VI” by Will Durant).
15th of April 1452 is the Birthday of the Renaissance Genius Leonardo Da Vinci . Leonardo aversion to women was well established as well as his fondness to good looking men. Leonardo painted what is considered to greatest self portrait of all time.
As far as I know Durer was not gay but his willingness to push the boundaries and in the process also to portray himself in such a manner made him one of all time greats.
Leonardo was in Venecian gail arrested for rumours of gay relationships in his early years.
There is a great progress in this regard in Israel – it is not enough. We must allow gay marriages and equal rights. But it is important to note that Israel is the only so called “Western” country that does not allow Jews to be married without Rabanite authority and does not allow marriges of Jews to none Jews. In that regard we still have a long way to go
It is time we cast out those backward voices of those Rabanite where they belong: only as a bad reminder for dark and uncivilised days.
Our self portrait, although there is much to be proud of, still has much to work on. We can’t believe, as many do, that regardless of what we do we are, eventually, the untainted image of Dorian Grey.
System D 