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Gunman kills 3, injures 11 at gay club in Tel Aviv - Crime Library Message Boards
By IAN DEITCH, Associated Press Writer Ian Deitch, Associated Press Writer 38 mins ago
JERUSALEM Israeli police say a gunman entered a youth club for gay teens in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night and sprayed the interior with automatic rifle fire, killing three people and injuring 11.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said it was "most likely a criminal attack and not a terror attack." Tel Aviv has been a target for Palestinian militants in the past.
He said the gunman burst into the basement of the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association and opened fire on a support group for gay teenagers.
Police are searching the area for the gunman, who fled the scene, he said.
Roadblocks were set up.
Rescue services said six of the wounded were badly hurt.
"This was a hate crime, a premeditated attack," witness Yaniv Weisman told Channel 10 TV.
He said Cafe Noir, the basement club, was popular with youth.
"Those hurt were very young," he said.
Openly gay Knesset lawmaker Nitzan Horowitz said it was "without a doubt the biggest ever attack on the Israeli gay community, we are all in shock."
Witnesses told Israeli media that the gunman was dressed all in black, and described the scene as a "bloodbath."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090801/..._aviv_shooting
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Police in manhunt for Tel Aviv gay club shooter
By JEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer Jen Thomas, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 25 mins ago
TEL AVIV, Israel Hundreds of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people at a youth club in the worst ever attack on homosexuals in Israel.
The Tel Aviv shooting shocked the Mediterranean city, which prides itself on its live-and-let-live attitude and boasts a thriving gay community.
The brazen attack drew condemnations from the city's mayor, from Cabinet ministers, the country's chief rabbis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We'll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him," Netanyahu said of the killer, speaking at the Israeli Cabinet's weekly meeting.
A masked man entered the center for gay teens in downtown Tel Aviv late Saturday night, pulled out a pistol and opened fire, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The shooter then concealed his weapon and fled the scene on foot into the busy streets outside the center, Rosenfeld said.
The dead were identified as a 26-year-old man who was a counselor at the center and a 17-year-old girl.
Eleven people were wounded, four of them seriously.
"I took cover with someone under a table, and he kept firing," 16-year-old Or Gil, who was shot twice in the legs, recounted in news footage aired on the YNet news Web site.
"When I got up it was horrifying, I just saw blood," he said.
Photographs of the scene showed bodies lying near a billiard table and a smear of blood on the white-tile floor.
Jonathan Bower, 23, said he had been at the club before the attack and was outside when the shots began.
"One of my friends came out shouting and screaming 'he has a gun, he has a gun,'" followed by a group of girls who escaped the building and urged Bower to run away himself, he said.
The girls told him the shooter was wearing a ski mask.
"This is a moment when I have to keep a low profile, I have to tone it down, because now we are afraid," he said.
Bower was outside the club Sunday along with a crowd of supporters and onlookers.
A bouquet of flowers rested on the curb, near barricades erected by police and a sign reading "Stop Homophobia."
Nitzan Horowitz, Israel's only openly gay lawmaker, called the attack a "hate crime."
"This is the worst attack ever against the gay community in Israel," he said.
"This act was a blind attack against innocent youths, and I expect the authorities to exercise all means in apprehending the shooter."
Police slapped a gag order on the case, saying publication of details could compromise the investigation.
Mike Hamel, a gay rights activist whose organization runs the youth club, said the center served as a safe place where gay teens many of them still concealing their sexual identity from their families and friends could meet with counselors and other teenagers.
He blamed religious incitement against homosexuals for the attack.
"Beyond the pain, the frustration and the anger, we are facing a situation in which the incitement to hate creates an environment that allows this to happen," Hamel said.
Israel's gays and lesbians typically enjoy freedoms similar to those of gays in European countries.
Gay soldiers serve openly in the military, and openly gay musicians and actors are among the country's most popular.
Tel Aviv holds a festive annual gay parade, rainbow flags are often seen flying from apartment windows and there is a city-funded open house for the community.
However, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders often incite against gays, especially in conservative Jerusalem, where there have been clashes between religious and gay activists.
In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox protester stabbed three marchers at a Jerusalem gay parade.
Last year, a lawmaker from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party suggested in parliament that earthquakes were divine punishment for homosexual activity.
Shas, whose members have been among the most frequent critics of gays, issued a statement condemning Saturday's attack.
Tel Aviv's mayor, Ron Huldai, pledged that Tel Aviv would continue to maintain its pluralistic nature, and opposition leader Tzipi Livni expressed shock and sorrow, saying the shooting should "awaken society to rid itself of prejudice." President Shimon Peres also condemned what he called a "despicable murder" which "a cultured and enlightened people cannot accept."
Thousands took to the street in an impromptu march after Saturday night's attack to mourn for the victims and call for tolerance.
Other demonstrations were planned Sunday in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other Israeli cities.
The covers of Sunday's newspapers all featured photos of the bloodstained floors of the youth club and headlines such as "Massacre of the Proud Youth" and "Terror Against the Proud Community." Gay celebrities penned guest columns.
The youth at the club "go there because it is a refuge of sorts for them," songwriter and gay activist Rona Keinan wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronot.
"The very thought that a person might enter that protected space and simply open fire at them is shocking.
I just want to cry."
____
Associated Press Writer Aron Heller contributed from Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/...l_gay_shooting
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Israelis rally after 2 murdered at gay center
By JEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer Jen Thomas, Associated Press Writer 53 mins ago
TEL AVIV, Israel Reeling from the worst attack ever aimed at homosexuals in Israel, members of the country's gay community and their supporters rallied Sunday in the heart of Tel Aviv a day after a masked gunman killed two people at a center for gay youth and escaped.
As protesters with rainbow flags mourned the victims and condemned the homophobic sentiment assumed to be behind the attack, police hunted for the assailant throughout a city that has long prided itself on a live-and-let-live attitude and a thriving gay community.
"I fear that if the man who did this is not found, the consequences to the gay community might be far-reaching they might live in fear," said Arnon Hirsch, a 47-year-old lawyer who was one of several hundred people who took part in the protest near the center attacked Saturday night.
Hirsch said he is openly gay and does not intend to act differently now.
"I have no intention of giving in to terror," he said.
"I'm not going to hide anywhere."
Outside the center, a bouquet of flowers rested on the curb near barricades erected by police and a sign reading, "Stop Homophobia."
A masked man entered the center for gay teens in downtown Tel Aviv late Saturday night, pulled out a pistol and opened fire, according to Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman.
The shooter then fled the scene on foot, Rosenfeld said.
Photographs taken inside after the shooting showed bodies lying near a billiard table and a smear of blood on the white-tile floor.
The dead were identified as a 26-year-old man who was a counselor at the center and a 17-year-old girl.
Eleven people were wounded, four of them critically.
"I took cover with someone under a table, and he kept firing," 16-year-old Or Gil, who was shot twice in the legs, recounted in news footage aired on the YNet news Web site.
"When I got up it was horrifying, I just saw blood."
Jonathan Bower, 23, said he had been in the club before the attack and was outside when the shots began.
"One of my friends came out shouting and screaming, 'He has a gun, he has a gun,'" Bower said.
Bower said the city's usually uninhibited gay population would have to be more careful now.
"This is a moment when I have to keep a low profile, I have to tone it down, because now we are afraid," he said.
Police slapped a gag order on the case, saying publication of details could compromise their investigation.
Mike Hamel, a gay rights activist whose organization runs the youth club, said the center was meant to be a safe place where gay teens many of them still concealing their sexual identity from their families and friends could meet with counselors and other teenagers.
He blamed religious incitement against homosexuals for the attack.
"Beyond the pain, the frustration and the anger, we are facing a situation in which the incitement to hate creates an environment that allows this to happen," Hamel said.
The attack drew condemnations from Tel Aviv's mayor, Cabinet ministers, the country's chief rabbis and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We'll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him," Netanyahu said of the killer, speaking at the Israeli Cabinet's weekly meeting.
Nitzan Horowitz, Israel's only openly gay lawmaker, called the attack a "hate crime."
"This is the worst attack ever against the gay community in Israel," he said.
"This act was a blind attack against innocent youths, and I expect the authorities to exercise all means in apprehending the shooter."
Israel's gays and lesbians typically enjoy freedoms similar to their counterparts in European countries.
Gay soldiers serve openly in the military, and gay musicians and actors are among the country's most popular.
Tel Aviv holds a festive annual gay parade, rainbow flags are often seen flying from apartment windows and there is a city-funded community center for gays.
Things are different in conservative Jerusalem, however, where there have been clashes between religious and gay activists.
In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox protester stabbed three marchers at a Jerusalem gay parade.
Last year, a lawmaker from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party suggested in Parliament that earthquakes were divine punishment for homosexual activity.
The party, whose members have been among the most frequent critics of gays, also issued a statement condemning Saturday's attack.
The youth at the club "go there because it is a refuge of sorts for them," songwriter and gay activist Rona Keinan wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronot.
"The very thought that a person might enter that protected space and simply open fire at them is shocking.
I just want to cry."
Some of the parents of the wounded teenagers were not aware their children were gay until they were summoned to the hospital Saturday night, said Avi Soffer, 60, a volunteer at the center.
"They didn't even know the kids were coming," Soffer said.
___
Associated Press Writer Aron Heller contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/...l_gay_shooting
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Gay vs. Orthodox: Israel's Culture War Turns Deadly
By MATTHEW KALMAN / JERUSALEM Matthew Kalman / Jerusalem 58 mins ago
Israeli police launched a citywide manhunt through Tel Aviv for the masked, black-clad gunman who opened fire with a pistol at a gay youth club on Saturday night, Aug.
1, killing two and wounding 15 more.
While the authorities have been careful not to speculate on a motive for the crime, the city's stunned gay community was not hesitant about assigning blame for the atmosphere they believe was conducive to the crime.
Pointing to Orthodox Jewish gay-bashers, gay activists say the shots fired in the club for teenagers - the most serious in a series of verbal and physical attacks on their community - were a violent manifestation of Israel's ongoing culture war.
The attack spotlights the tensions within Israeli society as it tries to balance Western liberalism and Orthodox Jewish values.
Tel Aviv is considered one of the world's favorite gay holiday destinations, celebrated for its nightlife, carefree beaches and tolerant atmosphere.
In 2005, the city launched the country's first municipally funded gay center, and in 2007, the Israel Ministry of Tourism launched a marketing campaign specifically targeting the gay community, featuring photographs of tattooed, yarmulka-clad men kissing.
In many areas of Israel, gay couples are treated as equals.
They can adopt children and enjoy equal inheritance rights.
The Israeli diplomatic service was one of the first to grant full rights to gay partners.
But the Tel Aviv that is the epitome of Israeli gay rights is only a short bus ride from one of the more inflexible Orthodox communities in the country, Bnei Brak.
And in all matters connected to religion, gay rights are considered subservient to traditional Jewish teaching, in which male homosexuality is outlawed and lesbians simply do not exist.
Israel has long struggled with the demands of modern society and the increasingly strident calls from the ultra-Orthodox to bring public life more in line with rigid Jewish teachings.
There is no separation of church and state in Israel, where religious facilities - including those for the Muslim and Christian communities - are funded by the government but controlled by the religious establishment.
There is a wary standoff between the state judicial system and the religious courts, leading to increasingly frequent showdowns over cases involving divorce and religious conversion.
Passions can run high.
Advertising billboards featuring scantily clad women are periodically destroyed.
There is a legal battle under way over demands to run separate public buses for men and women on routes serving ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.
Recently Jerusalem has seen weekly protests over a municipal decision to open a parking lot on the Sabbath.
Last year, a former Health Minister from the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party blamed a series of small earth tremors on the rise of homosexual activity.
Earlier, Shas had led religious opposition to gay couples' being granted the right to adopt children.
Nitzan Horowitz, a gay lawmaker from the left-wing Meretz Party, blamed the attack on "years of unremitting incitement from parliamentarians, rabbis and public figures." He added, "I attribute this to the general incitement and hate with which we have been contending for years in this community." Shas, however, was quick to condemn Saturday's killings.
"We are shocked and bereaved, and denounce without reservation the murderous incident that targeted Tel Aviv's gay community," the party said in a statement.
Israel's chief rabbis described the killings as "an unthinkable, vile crime."
Still, the ultra-Orthodox and the gay community have been known to come to physical blows.
Gay activists recall the 2005 pride march in Jerusalem, when an ultra-Orthodox man leaped into the crowd and stabbed three marchers before he could be restrained by police.
The violence came after the city's ultra-Orthodox mayor had tried to ban the march but was overruled in court.
The following year, police ordered 12,000 officers to protect a few hundred marchers from possible ultra-Orthodox violence.
Even Tel Aviv has not been exempt from gay-bashing.
Gay activist Shlomi Laufer, writing in Tel Aviv's daily Yedioth Ahronoth, recalled two men embracing on the boardwalk being spat on and others being chased with baseball bats and even stabbed.
"The problems in Israeli society run very deep," Saar Netanel, a gay leader and former Jerusalem city councilor who opened the city's only gay bar, tells TIME.
He explains that while Jews are united by their conflict with the Palestinians, the obsession with security comes at the expense of dealing with other social issues.
"There are more than two societies here," says Netanel.
"It's a very diverse population in Israel.
There is one part of Israel, my camp, for whom the temple is the Supreme Court and we believe in democracy and we want a liberal and modern country;
And there is a part of Israel that wants a more religious country - some of them even want the rule of Jewish law, not a democracy.
They don't believe in the courts - they believe in the law of the Torah."
For many Israelis, Saturday's killings recalled the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, when a lone shooter capped months of hate-filled rhetoric against Israel's elder statesman by gunning him down as he left a peace rally in the same city.
"The pistol did not act on its own, the gunman did not act on his own - what stood behind him was incitement and hatred," Labor lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich said at an impromptu gathering near the site of the shootings on Sunday, consciously echoing comments made after Rabin's assassination.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009080...08599191439100
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The general take here in the community is that the killer was a religious nationalist, of the Yigal Amir ilk.
There were also Phreddie (sic) Felps (sic) demonstrators outside the house of the parents of the girl killed.
The shelter in town for gay runaways is on the alert for injured kids whose parents will not let them back in the house.
There will be a demo in Rabin Square on Saturday night.
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Marion-
Thanks so much for the update!!
I was hoping you'd have info that we aren't getting here!!
Please-feel free to update on any stories you have additional articles on!
Hugs-
Donna
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Best newspaper site in English is www.haaretz.com
Second best is www.ynetnews.com - tabloid
Third best is www.jpost.com -religious right
There are a couple of really fundamentalist Jewish sites, but you'll have to find them on your own.
Sorry.
I ain't giving those goons no helping hand.
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I don't blame you about the fundamentalists...YIKES!!!
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Http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...798629,00.html
He's whining about his civil rights being violated
No more so than the rights of a lot of Palestinians and a handful of Jews in various shades of left have been violated.
And it sure didn't take the police over a decade to arrest them.
Did speak to a great many of my fellow gays yet, but there are people that are saying yes it's him, and people that aren't.
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HIS CIVIL RIGHTS???
What about the rights of the people he KILLED???
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Quote: : HIS CIVIL RIGHTS???
What about the rights of the people he KILLED???
"Funniest" thing is, the Jewish fundamentalists of this ilk want civil law abolished and OT + later Halalchic, ie, Jewish sharia used instead.
Lemme tell you, their ain't no civil rights in any of that stuff.
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Quote: : Paroo "Funniest" thing is, the Jewish fundamentalists of this ilk want civil law abolished and OT + later Halalchic, ie, Jewish sharia used instead.
Lemme tell you, their ain't no civil rights in any of that stuff.
I guess they think God needs help getting people to follow Him, too bad for these nutballs that it is supposed to be voluntary or it means nothing.
I'm horrified at the idea of living under religious law, be it my religion or anyone else's
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Quote: : Paroo http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...798629,00.html
He's whining about his civil rights being violated
No more so than the rights of a lot of Palestinians and a handful of Jews in various shades of left have been violated.
And it sure didn't take the police over a decade to arrest them.
Did speak to a great many of my fellow gays yet, but there are people that are saying yes it's him, and people that aren't.
Wow!
Just read the article.
This guy's a real terrorist, he should be treated as one...
Hey Marian, when they mentioned the bombing of a "messianic" family, does that mean Christian Jews, or is it another sect of Judaism?
In any case, he was really after everybody but himself, it seems...
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Quote: : Wow! Just read the article.
This guy's a real terrorist, he should be treated as one...
Hey Marian, when they mentioned the bombing of a "messianic" family, does that mean Christian Jews, or is it another sect of Judaism?
In any case, he was really after everybody but himself, it seems...
Jews for Jesus messianic?
Heck no Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews, in the Jesus sense are on his hate list.
Messianic Jews here mean the ones who believe if they kill enough Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and gays and doctors who perform termination of pregnancy (even to save a woman's life), etc., etc., and destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount then the Messiah will come.
You can recognize them from their deep white skullcaps, and sometimes white robes.
Yeah, just like the Moslem fanatics.
I am always explaining this one to 'net friends.
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Quote: : Paroo Jews for Jesus messianic?
Heck no Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews, in the Jesus sense are on his hate list.
Messianic Jews here mean the ones who believe if they kill enough Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and gays and doctors who perform termination of pregnancy (even to save a woman's life), etc., etc., and destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount then the Messiah will come.
You can recognize them from their deep white skullcaps, and sometimes white robes.
Yeah, just like the Moslem fanatics.
I am always explaining this one to 'net friends.
Thanks! I wondered if there was a difference.
I have heard Christian Jews use the term "messianic" for themselves here...
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Quote: : Thanks! I wondered if there was a difference.
I have heard Christian Jews use the term "messianic" for themselves here...
I got into an agument with someone, don't remember if he called himself a Messianic Jew, a Jew for Jesus or a Christian Jew, on a Dr Phil board about two weeks ago, following the program he had on "faith."
I told him that IMHO it's all a lot of bull droppings, and if he wants to believe in Jesus as his messiah he should just have the balls to convert and stop dancing at two weddings.
He insisted that he can believe in Jesus as Messiah and still be a Jew.
Well, according the Jewish law, you can never opt out, so in that way he is right, but he is a heretic, and eligible for the death penalty if the Sanhedrin (Jewish court in the days of the Temple) ever comes back.
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Quote: : Paroo I got into an agument with someone, don't remember if he called himself a Messianic Jew, a Jew for Jesus or a Christian Jew, on a Dr Phil board about two weeks ago, following the program he had on "faith."
I told him that IMHO it's all a lot of bull droppings, and if he wants to believe in Jesus as his messiah he should just have the balls to convert and stop dancing at two weddings.
He insisted that he can believe in Jesus as Messiah and still be a Jew.
Well, according the Jewish law, you can never opt out, so in that way he is right, but he is a heretic, and eligible for the death penalty if the Sanhedrin (Jewish court in the days of the Temple) ever comes back.
I find that celebrating two traditions that don't conflict enriches our lives and faith, for example, Passover and Easter.
But in any case, I sure hope this guy gets what should be coming to him.
How dare anyone sit in their little perch and decide who is deserving of life based on their beliefs?
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Two traditions is one thing.
I dress up my windows for everybody's holidays.
But since the whole basis of Judaism is waiting for the first and only coming of the messiah, the two simply do not mix.
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