31st July 2015
We are appalled and shocked by the knife attack at the Pride March in Jerusalem where six peo­ple were stabbed. We under­stand that two of them are in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion. The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia con­demns the attack in the strongest pos­si­ble terms, and we are pleased to see state­ments from Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and reli­gious lead­ers across the world express­ing out­rage at the attack.
A pur­port­ed­ly reli­gious Jew­ish extrem­ist has been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the attack. That per­son was released from prison three weeks ago, after serv­ing a ten year sen­tence for a sim­i­lar attack. We have con­fi­dence that the Israeli Jus­tice sys­tem will deal with him appro­pri­ate­ly.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the inno­cent vic­tims and their fam­i­lies. We wish all the injured a speedy recov­ery.
Israel is known for its wel­com­ing accep­tance of Jews of diverse sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty, and for pro­vid­ing asy­lum to Pales­tin­ian gays who are in mor­tal dan­ger from their own com­mu­ni­ty. Israel is a bea­con to oth­er nations, not just in the Mid­dle East, but through­out the world for its inclu­sion of the LGBTI com­mu­ni­ty and its embrac­ing of diver­si­ty.