I don’t think I was surprised at their feeling on this, but I know this incident will break their hearts too, because they are sensitive people.
They just got back from spending six months in Israel through the bookend holidays of Hannukah and Passover.
It was stressful because of all the checkpoints, searches… things like that.
I LOVE the internet because we could spend so much time going back and forth and they could tell about what was going on there and I learned a LOT.

The sad part about this incident is that segregation makes you an easier target for violence. Thugs know that you’ll be concentrated together and this can maximize the effect of terrorizing your group.
Had these young folks been integrated into any other club, the target couldn’t have been so specific. As it is, gay folks would otherwise be hard to spot.

Which is why I’ve always thought that non married status, certain kinds of social isolation creates a process that identifies you as gay as surely as if you’d grown horns. And THAT is exactly why people demand such segregation, to know who you are and where.
Which contradicts the logic of being openly gay in the first place.

The faces of all my young Israeli friends are swimming in my mind’s eye right now. Those kids who contacted me through Matthew’s Place from around the world. Each casualty of hate anywhere, kills a bit of me here.

Perhaps, I need to consult with Rabbi Cohen on this. He’s a young man himself, knows his two worlds American and Israeli. Or maybe, just because we are friends, he cares to give comfort in a frightening and harsh world.
Either way, this incident IS one of religious incitement against a misunderstood and maligned minority…like Jews themselves.

But then, as now, the ultra-Orthodox were a problem, as religious fanatics seem to be in every culture.

My heart goes out to the victims and their families.