Israeli Consulate Hosts LGBT Festival

An Israeli consulate general has partnered with Bay Area Jewish community groups to produce a monthlong festival on LGBT culture in Israel featuring several films, including Yossi & Jagger, and other events in San Francisco and the surrounding area.

Throughout April, Out in Israel will offer LGBT films, theatrical and musical performances by Israeli artists, cooking demonstrations, art exhibitions, literary readings, and a panel on queer perspectives on Israel and Zionism. Most of the events are free and open to the public.

"Israel is blessed with an extremely vibrant LGBT community, and the Bay Area is a natural setting to display the many forms of innovative LGBT artistic expression being created by Hebrew culture," Akiva Tor, Israel's consul general to the Pacific Northwest, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ever festival focused on bringing Israel LGBT artistic creation to the world at large, and we are excited to be doing this in the rich cultural environs of the Bay Area."