The following Op-Ed was published in the opinion pages of the Jerusalem Post on October 28, 2003.  The online version is available here.
The Hebrew version will be published in the November edition of the Jerusalem Open House magazine, Daf Ha'bait, and is available online at GoGay.
Do read on.

Being gay in Jerusalem isn't 'provocative'

My first kiss was in front of a haredi [ultra-religious] event hall in the middle of Jerusalem. We stood there, he and I, in a slightly dark spot in the center of town. From the adjacent windows came the happy sounds of the event the haredim [ultra-religious] were celebrating – a wedding, bar mitzva.

At the end of the street a group of border police passed looking for people who want to blow themselves up. And me, I was standing there with him, "provoking," "parading my perversions down the street," doing the thing that "most residents of Jerusalem find disgusting," that "the three religions see as a sin" – kissing the person I love.

It didn't feel like much of a provocation, though, as I was busy figuring out what exactly one does with one's tongue, and if I'm supposed to stop breathing and for how long. I admit that within a few seconds I stopped paying attention to my breathing, and moved on to focus on the person in front of me – and even stopped thinking about the yeshiva [religious study centre] boys or the soldiers who might see us.

Only a few weeks later did I realize the extensive international importance of what I'd done. During a conversation with a cousin residing abroad, he insisted on hearing the circumstances of my first kiss – so I gave him some details, and for modesty purposes, focused on describing the area and atmosphere.

My cousin, who occasionally acts like a Jewish mother, was impressed and proud of me, and hurried to share with his friends, acquaintances and random people on the street, the fact that "my cousin from Israel kissed a boy for the first time in front of a haredi event hall while uniformed soldiers patrolled around him."

I assume that the story eventually circulated to at least half the population of New York.

It's hard for me to see Jerusalem from the perspective of people abroad, or even of those living outside the city. Jerusalem to me is home, the place I grew up in, the place I went to first grade, the place I first fell in love and the place my heart was first broken.

BUT IN the background, there is always the weird connection of the entire world to Jerusalem – those who think that all Jerusalemites do all day is pray and ride camels, and that the Messiah is roaming our streets waiting for his cue.

It seems that almost everyone who's ever heard of Jerusalem has an opinion about the city, and even more so – believes there's a part of it that's his.

That is why it's not surprising that so many feelings are aroused when people hear the word Jerusalem. "But why Jerusalem?" is the most common phrase, which has been heard and probably will be again many more times – starting from MK [Member of the Knesset] Nissim Zeev, and ending with my mother.

"Jerusalem is a holy city," they say, and I wonder how I, Or Goren of Jerusalem, hurt the holiness of the city. However we look at it, the bottom line is that I am damaging its holiness. Before anyone actually marches, before the flags and the happening, before anything else is a young guy standing in Jerusalem, between a haredi hall and a police patrol, insulting the holiness of the city.

What kind of holiness is this that is hurt by two people in love?

Is this the holiness on behalf of which gay pride flags are vandalized, in the name of which insulting graffiti are written in the streets? Or is it the holiness because of which young boys and girls are thrown out of their homes when they discover they're different?

I don't accept this definition of holiness. The holiness of Jerusalem, to me, is that which shines from the smiles of the people walking down the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall. The holiness I know is the one on behalf of which strangers invite one another to their Succot [huts for an autum festival], or give out medical equipment to those in need. The holiness I love in Jerusalem is the one for which tourists come to the city, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, to feel closer to their history, to their heritage, to their God.

And the holiness I love most is that of two people in love holding hands and kissing at the same spot where others did before them 100, 300, and 2,000 years ago.

If the whole world looks up to Jerusalem, and if the three religions see in Jerusalem a holy place, then here's our chance to contribute (again) to the holiness of the city.

The WorldPride that will take place in Jerusalem will bring together Jewish gay men, Christian lesbians and bisexual Muslims. WorldPride will invite transsexuals from Japan and questioning people from Iceland. And although in their daily lives, many of these people are busy with wars, in the name of their nationality, religions, or opinions, for this one week in 2005 all these people will come here with the one thing that unites them: their love.

I don't know anything holier then that.

The writer is a member of the Jerusalem Open House, organizer of the 2005 Jerusalem WorldPride.