Deborah Does Pride
She’s here. She’s queer. She’s also a Zionist. Get Used to It. BordoLines is delighted to publish this guest stack by Deborah Levinson!
When I woke up on the morning of October 7th I was greeted by my wife who said something happened.
I don’t remember whether Denyse handed me her phone or I picked up mine or we turned on the news or how I got the sparse details which existed at the time. There had been a major attack on people who were doing nothing more than joining together in song and dance in support of peace.
Like so many I turned to social media to check in with friends and to post my dismay.
Almost immediately amongst the “Oh my G/d I cannot believe what happened”1 I saw the beginnings of what would become a constant cacophony of voices expressing hatred for me and mine.
The voices ranged from “it didn’t happen” to “even if it happened it didn’t happen the way that Israel said it happened” to “even if it happened the way Israel said it happened they deserved it.”
These voices also included the current Mayor of NYC. Rather than specifically condemning Hamas’s October 7 attacks in his initial remarks, Mamdani placed the blame on Israel’s policies, demanding an end to the “occupation” and “apartheid.”
Little thought was given to the fact that this dance festival was international in nature. Not all the participants were Israeli; many of them were not even Jews.
This before Israel even responded.
October 8th:
Indeed, before Israeli responded there were cries of genocide and apartheid, most coming from people who had never set foot in the Middle East. Some conflated distinct issues in the West Bank with the attacks from Gaza. Others described Gaza, an area which had been controlled by the (self-named) “Palestinians” for almost 20 years at that time as an “open air prison.” In fact, many people who lived in Gaza went daily to work in Israel. There also was little to no reporting about how the infrastructure which had been left intact when Israel withdrew had been destroyed by Hamas to create a vast underground tunnel that extended beneath hospitals and schools. People were left with the impression—which persisted even after videos of the tunnels were published—that civilian deaths were deliberate.
The attack left me shellshocked. I was in a daze. Frozen. My entire body pulsated in a fight or flight response, not knowing what to do. Even now as I sit here typing these words my body is revisiting those feelings and tears come to my eyes.
I was stunned and immobile. Much like I am now, trying to write.
I was crying almost constantly, and even as the tears slowed, they would come again from seemingly nowhere.
But it wasn’t from nowhere – the pain came from deep inside my soul and consumed each and every part of me, as more and more images and reports emerged.
I am an American. I live in the United Kingdom. But Israel is in my blood and is part of my very existence.
[Obligatory Disclaimer (sigh): I know that the government of Israel is not now nor has it ever been perfect. Also, like most people I abhor violence and I’m not a fan of war.
I will also note that I should be able to share my thoughts without that disclaimer.]
I’ve been lucky. I grew up in Los Angeles where coming out was (relatively) easy. I was also raised to have a social conscience and a strong sense of Jewish identity. I went to Hebrew school for multiple years where I learned from Hebrew scripture that there is rarely one “correct” answer but more often many contested discussions trying to find the right thing to do in the right way. It’s a principle I’ve believed in all my life. And I have spent a good deal of my life educating both online and off responding to hateful posts with facts and data.
I’ve always been out as a lesbian.
I am also 100% Zionist—when defined properly as the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. I believe that the State of Israel must continue to exist and must be able must be allowed to defend itself against those who would see her destroyed. It’s shocking to me to discover how little, if anything at all, “the left” seems to know about the history of ongoing terrorist attacks against Israel since its founding. To listen to the protestors, you’d think October 7 was unprecedented and an anomaly.
I have always fought the good fight for gay and lesbian rights since I came out in 1979. But after October 7th I had to turn up the volume on my Israel and Jewish advocacy.
One day driving home, Hatikvah blasting from my car, I heard other cars honking, and followed the sounds to the source. There was a stream of cars in the West Valley (West San Fernando Valley, suburb of Los Angeles) driving down the the main street, Ventura Boulevard, honking and waving Israeli flags, in cars, in truck, in pick up, and I joined in and unrolled my windows and we all blasted and we were together in not only our pain and sorrow – but also our pride and joy in who and what we are.
Jews joining together, to hold to and to exist as one. Echad. With Hashem.
Am Yisrael Chai
The pushback against Israel started immediately. Online, with the news coverage, with the talking heads. People I did not know, as well as, sadly, people I did know, through school, through work. Very early I lost one longtime friend because she proclaimed herself an “Anti Zionist Jew” but then when asked to define it chose to end the relationship rather than be faced with what her words meant to and about Israel.
October 7th had brought it all to a head, where the masks were finally off and the hatred of all things Israel was no longer in the closet.
.
Or is it hatred of Jews?
Israel is not only not an Apartheid state but has a very robustly mixed racial and religious make up; the ONLY nation in the Middle East which does, and gives full civil rights to all within its borders.
So why have antisemitic protests and violence increased so dramatically since October 7?
The mantra is always: “I’m not antisemitic; I’m just protesting the government of Israel.” It’s what Zohran Mamdani claimed, when he refused to march in the “Israel Day” parade. Yet as early as only 11 days after the October 7 attacks he was declaring that government “genocidal” and rousing crowds to action.
The symbols and icons are telling. A day after the “the brutal Hamas invasion which left over 1,300 people dead, a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters took over New York City’s Time Square on October 8, 2023, waving signs and placards including a Nazi swastika.”
Glorifying the massacre of October 7th, and including signs symbolizing the murder of over 6,000,000 Jews cannot be classified as a protest against a government.
A couple leaving an event outside the Capital Jewish Museum were shot dead as they left by a man shouting “Free Palestine!” He did not know who they were or where they worked, merely that they were at the Jewish Museum. Ironically the event was centered on building a coalition to support Gazans amid the ongoing war.
That’s not a protest about a government.
In October 2025, a terrorist drove a car into people outside a synagogue in Manchester, England, and then began stabbing individuals on the street. Two people were killed and four were seriously wounded.
That’s not a protest about a government.
A few other examples of “protest against the government of Israel”:
The young man who did not want to work for a “Jewish company.”
A Jewish Deli owner is subject to constant harassment.
He notes: “They don’t know my political beliefs. They don’t know who I am,” he said. “You have an American flag, it doesn’t mean you support everything the American government does. Chinese restaurants don’t support oppression in China.”
Jewish owned companies being subject to boycott and vandalism regardless of ties to Israel.
“Routine ostracism” of Jews within parts of the UK health service, Jewish doctors who considered leaving their jobs because of antisemitism and Jewish patients who said they were afraid to seek NHS treatment because they feared antisemitism in doing so.
Activists and political groups conducting door-to-door campaigns, explicitly asking residents about their support for Israel and their Jewish identity.
My life has been filled with t-shirts, and I have many which are close to half a century old. They are my walking statements.
After October 7th, I filled my wardrobe with shirts proclaiming “Am Yisrael Chai” in various forms, I bought an IDF shirt an Israeli flag. I draped the flag around my shoulders for a new profile picture. I bought smaller flags for my car which I had waving as I drove.
… And yet, when I parked, I put them inside the car, knowing those very flags with which I was so willing to declare “in your face – I’m here and I’m not going anywhere” on my body would make my car a target for vandalism.
So I hid them. And was sad that I knew that it was safer to do so.
It wasn’t entirely surprising to discover the queer slash progressive community suffered from Israel myopia. When I was a college student in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, I was walking to the women’s centre with a friend to hear her proclaim (I don’t recall the context) “Those poor Palestinians” and “Israel’s so horrible to them.”
Fast forward three decades and the Women and Dyke Marches in various cities and states that banned Israeli Pride flags.
Ironic, as Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where being gay is not a crime and where gay and lesbian marriages are recognized on an equal basis with all other marriages.
I spend every morning on social media.
It is saturated with anti Jewish words and memes.
I scroll and read and reply until I can’t take it anymore.
I am literally walking into the Lion’s Den when I go to Pride this weekend.
I will be wearing my Jewish Star.2
I won’t be wearing one of my own more overt Jewish pride t-shirts.
I won’t put my wife at risk
I will not be enjoying the camaraderie of queer space as I have in the past.
For I will be watching and mindful – looking to see who is looking at me oddly.
Wondering whether there will be a verbal or physical assault.
But I will also be looking for other Jews. And we will smile and nod at each other in our subset of Jewish Queer solidarity.
I’m a lesbian.I make no bones about it.
I am Jewish.I make no bones about it.
I am a Zionist, and I make no bones about it.
My identities do inform my politics, and I will not back away from any of them while I continue to fight for myself and for others.
I will even fight for those of you who would just as soon see Israel gone.
Am Yisrael Chai.
The people of Israel live.
Deborah Levinson has been active and advocating online since 1979. She lives with her wife and their two dogs. They escaped the United States for the time being and they own and run a right proper pub in southwest England. Deborah’s substack is NoBrackets.
Why Don’t You Spell Out G-d’s Name? - Chabad.org https://share.google/Dg3RteIODIlqBbKbv
The sad fact is that that even my wearing of a Jewish star puts me out risk and the people who would create those risks are sadly as prevalent at a pride parade as they are at white supremacy marches through the streets of London or barricades on many U.S. campuses through the past two academic years.
https://combatantisemitism.org/cam-news/star-of-david-necklace-attack/
https://combatantisemitism.org/cam-news/star-of-david-necklace-attack/
Thank you for this. It's a hard but necessary read.
Thanks Deborah and Susan.