Victim's Sister Recounts Attack on Tel Aviv Gay Centre

Rally at Rabin Squareon August 8, 2009Pic: WikiMedia Commons

From Left to Right: Justine Apple (Executive Director of Kulanu Toronto), Atarah Derrick (Outreach & Development Associate for the New Israel Fund of Canada), and Chen Katz (sister of Nir Katz, murdered in Tel Aviv during the attack on Bar Noar)

The Aguda building in Tel Aviv, 18 days before the attack took placePic: WikiMedia Commons

At 10:40 pm on August 1, 2009, a man dressed in black walked into the Tel Aviv gay centre interrupting a gathering of 25 youth part. He was holding a handgun. His face was covered but you could see his eyes and catch his demeanor. “He was not crazy or insane. He looked into people’s eyes,” Chen Katz recounts, “He killed my brother Nir and [17-year-old] Liz Troubishi immediately.” With only one entrance in and out, there was nowhere to run. He shot thirteen other youth, permanently paralyzing two. Then he disappeared. At the hospital, concerned social workers began calling parents to tell them about the attack. In this way some parents learned the sexual identity of their children for the first time. Yoni, a councilor at the centre, was kicked out of his house shortly afterwards. Another father told Chen that the “bullet that went through my son’s knee went through my brain as well,” opening his eyes to the effects of hatred. Despite international media attention, a victim re-enactment of the crime, and the massive manhunt that followed, to date the police have not found the assailant. At this point, they probably never will.

Chen Katz was speaking to a small group at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in downtown Toronto on March 25, 2010. The twenty-five or so attendees consisted of a mix of left-wing activists and interested community members. Sponsored by New Israel Fund of Canada, Kulanu Toronto and Generation Aleph of the Holy Blossom Temple, the event came at the end of a long tour for Chen. She was speaking with a steady and practiced voice, with just a hint of fatigue. She told the group she would focus on her family’s story, “because that’s what I know.” Her father was killed in an army accident and her mother re-married. She described her brother Nir as a “computer guy.” He avoided dating… until he met Udi at the age of 20. Her mother reacted well enough to the new boyfriend, though “she had to adjust her big family dream a bit.” His comrades in the army jokingly responded “wasn’t it obvious?” (the IDF is known for its tolerance in this area). After working with Gays for Social Justice, and joining the Agudah (literally, the “association”), Israel’s leading LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) rights movement, he started working as a volunteer councilor in Tel Aviv’s Bar Noar.

Bar Noar was created as a safe space for Tel Aviv’s at-risk LGBT youth, a place where one could be “out” without intimidation or harassment, or spend the night if troubles at home got out of hand. “A place that feels like home,” Chen says. Bar Noar offers counseling services. Chen, like her brother, volunteers her time. Chen says her approach is “just talking with the kids”, making friends without being too pushy about problems at home. The Barack Project aims to rectify the elevated high school dropout rate among LGBT teens. Unable to pass the Bagrut, Israel’s standardized high school test, and facing rejection or double-lives at home, these LGBT teens can easily drift into prostitution and drugs. The project’s namesake - Barack - died at the age of 26 after falling down such a course. The project involves classes to help teens pass the Bagrut. Chen’s mother runs Tehilah, an organization that helps LGBT youth constructively engage with disapproving parents. As for Bar Noar, Nir wanted to give kids something he didn’t have, a physical space to just be. “My brother was modest. Now he’s the symbol of the gay community.”

After she finishes speaking, the small group peppers Chen with questions, particularly in relation to tolerance in the larger community. Chen responds, “[Overall,] Israel is really progressive [when it comes to] the gay community. But we live in a bubble in Tel Aviv. It’s normally okay to see girls walking down the street holding hands. On August 1, our bubble popped.” Israeli political leadership, from Shas to Meretz, universally condemned the attack. “While violence is not generally a problem, ignorance and homophobia are,” particularly within the religious community. Chen relates that “one Rabbi compared homosexuality to a disease, like the bird flu.” Another Orthodox person told Chen upon meeting her that he’d heard about the gay community but didn’t know it really existed. Israel’s annual Pride Parades in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv require heavy protection and have seen some violence in recent years, including a couple of stabbings. She says that before the Bar Noar attack, “[homosexuality] didn’t exist for them. Now they have to deal with it.”

Agudah runs educational campaigns in Israeli schools. The goal is to teach kids “being gay is not any different in the way you lead your life.” She says that kids are genuinely surprised to learn that the interactions of a gay couple are “normal” – one cooks, one earns more money than the other. Chen is optimistic about LGBT openness and engagement: “It hasn’t affected the Bar negatively. We’re having a seder there for Pesach with double the regular attendance.”

Back in Toronto, the small group breaks up into smaller discussions. I sit down with Atarah Derrick, Outreach & Development Associate for the New Israel Fund of Canada. I ask if the goal of the event was to connect with local LGBT communities or to educate the wider Jewish community. “Both,” she replies. It seems to me that the latter goal was less than successful, given the turnout. Is there one thing Derrick wants to educate Toronto’s Jewish community? She tells me that LGBT discrimination can fall under the radar because there are so many other problems facing Israel. “LGBT rights issues are the same as any other struggling communities’ issues, as they fight for full rights recognition. Whether of differing gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or ethnicity, what we want for ourselves should be what we strive for all to have.”

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