{"id":13854,"date":"2015-07-31T00:06:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T07:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=13854"},"modified":"2015-07-28T23:06:33","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T06:06:33","slug":"come-on-out-to-pride-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/07\/31\/come-on-out-to-pride-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Come on out to Pride festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, Yad b\u2019Yad, Hillel BC and others joined the Pride parade. This year, they will host a booth at Sunset Beach, which will allow them to engage more in discussion with festival-goers. (photo from Hillel BC)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Jewish contingent in this year\u2019s Vancouver Pride celebration is inviting everyone to participate. Yad b\u2019Yad, the Jewish LGBTQ organization, will have a booth at the festival site on Sunset Beach, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2.<\/p>\n

The parade runs from noon until 3 p.m., culminating at the Sunset Beach site. Jonathan Lerner, who is coordinating Yad b\u2019Yad\u2019s participation, said the decision was made to participate as a booth rather than to march in the parade, as the community has done beginning in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have messaging we want to get out,\u201d said Lerner. \u201cWhile it\u2019s great to march in the parade, you only get to pass people by for a few quick seconds and maybe, if you\u2019re lucky, you get to hand them something. For us, we wanted to be able to have conversations with people, meet people, introduce ourselves, tell them where they could come find us, have discussions with members of the queer community and the Jewish community. So, we felt like a booth would better serve that purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yad b\u2019Yad will be giving away items, offering face painting, a spinning wheel with prizes and an educational component, he said.<\/p>\n

The presence of the group on Pride day has a dual purpose, he added.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Carmel Tanaka and Rotem Tal were among the Hillel BC participants at last year’s Pride. (photo from Hillel BC)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly important for LGBTQ Jews to see us there and know that resources do exist for them,\u201d Lerner said. \u201cIt\u2019s also important to show that the Jewish community supports the queer community. There are a lot of other ethnic and religious groups that participate. It\u2019s important for us to have a presence there and show that we stand in solidarity with other minority communities and support them when they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yad b\u2019Yad<\/em> is Hebrew for hand in hand, which is meant to symbolize the two communities working together and the two identities that many people have, Lerner said. Yad b\u2019Yad is just about a year old and represents a solidification of the community\u2019s approach to LGBTQ issues, which until now was more ad hoc.<\/p>\n

The community\u2019s first participation in the Pride parade, in 2010, was spearheaded by Hillel BC, with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and other community groups, including synagogues. Lerner, who is director of operations, administration and finance for Hillel BC, explained Yad b\u2019Yad\u2019s mandate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started out to provide resources to queer members of the Jewish community and to advocate for the Jewish community within the LGBTQ community, because we still see a lot of antisemitism within that community,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we established the group, Yad b\u2019Yad, it was a decision among the organizations that had been involved before \u2013 including Federation, CIJA [Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs], Hillel \u2013 that Yad b\u2019Yad as a group should sort of lead the charge\u201d in organizing Pride day events.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage all the agencies to come out to the booth, be part of the celebration,\u201d Lerner added. \u201cIf an organization wants to come and be part of the booth, maybe bring with them a couple of pamphlets about their organization, they are absolutely welcome to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potential volunteers, or anyone seeking additional information, can email info@yadbyad.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, Yad b\u2019Yad, Hillel BC and others joined the Pride parade. This year, they will host a booth at Sunset Beach, which will allow them to engage more in discussion with festival-goers. (photo from Hillel BC) The Jewish contingent in this year\u2019s Vancouver Pride celebration is inviting everyone to participate. Yad b\u2019Yad, the Jewish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1347,1384,1741,1859],"class_list":["post-13854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-hillel-bc","tag-lgbtq","tag-pride","tag-yad-byad"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}