We, at Pride for Israel, a division of StandWithUs, strongly condemn the decision of the Rome Pride Parade organizers to exclude Jewish LGBTQ+ organizations, Keshet Italia and Keshet Europe, from participating in Pride this year. Demanding that LGBTQ+ Jews pass a contrived political litmus test in order to take part in Pride is not only antisemitic, but also a grotesque perversion of the meaning of Pride and the values our LGBTQ+ community once held sacred.
It is hypocrisy masquerading as social justice.
Pride was founded on the belief that marginalized communities deserve dignity, safety, equality, and belonging. It was built on the principle that we should be able to show up as our full authentic selves without fear of exclusion or discrimination. Yet Rome Pride has made it clear that Jewish identity is unwelcome unless we renounce a core part of who we are. That is not inclusion. That is discrimination. That is hate.
Rome, of all places, should know better than to once again participate in the exclusion and humiliation of the Jewish people. Rome is a city whose history visibly bears the scars of Jewish persecution, home to the Colosseum, built in part by Jewish slaves after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Rome is also home to the Arch of Titus, which depicts the enslavement and exile of Jews from Israel nearly 2,000 years ago. This form of modern discrimination against Jews by the Rome Pride Parade organizers should be especially unthinkable.
We should never be forced to renounce our identity, our community, or our relationship to Israel in order to participate in LGBTQ+ spaces. Holding Jewish people individually or collectively responsible for the actions of a foreign government echoes one of history’s oldest and most dangerous forms of bigotry. We are once again being singled out and excluded by standards applied to no other community.
Where is the outrage of these self-proclaimed human rights activists when the Islamist regime in Iran has a history of murdering gay people, and executed 2 gay men in 2022 after they were convicted on charges of same-sex relations? Where is their “righteous activism” for LGBTQ+ people in Afghanistan who face persecution or execution under the Taliban? Why is the Jewish State uniquely targeted despite being the only place in the Middle East that protects not only its own LGBTQ+ citizens but also takes in queer people seeking refuge from nearby oppressive anti-LGBTQ+ regimes? In addition, we have heard absolutely nothing from the Rome Pride Parade organizers about the 40,000 Iranian citizens who were recently mass murdered by the Iranian regime, or about the Christians in Nigeria who face ongoing violence, kidnapping and murder.
The selective silence is deafening. The hypocrisy is undeniable, as they ignore the world’s most brutal human rights violators.
While there can be space within the LGBTQ+ movement for diverse perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there can never be justification for excluding Jewish groups in ways that are not demanded of any other minority community. Solidarity that applies to everyone except Jews is not solidarity at all. Activism that excuses terrorism, ignores mass atrocities, and ostracizes Jewish people is not justice; it is antisemitism cloaked in the language of human rights.
We stand with the Jewish LGBTQ+ community in Italy and across Europe in rejecting antisemitism and exclusion disguised as activism. A Pride movement that excludes queer Jews betrays the very principles upon which this movement was built: inclusion, pluralism, liberation, and equal dignity for all people.
If Pride cannot make room for Jewish LGBTQ+ voices, then it has abandoned the very meaning of Pride itself.
Pride for Israel is the LGBTQ+ growing network that stands with Israel. To join Pride for Israel, or for more information, please contact Maxka@
