Independence Park ─ The Lives of Gay Men in Israel

Independence Park, Tel Aviv, is the best-known meeting place for gay men in Israel; Independence Park, Jerusalem, is perhaps the second-best-known; and the hope for independence is the dominant theme of this wide-ranging collection of personal narratives told in the voices of twelve gay men representing a cross-section of contemporary Israeli society.

The speakers are Jew and Arab, ranging in age from 22 to 72. They include students and teachers, a waiter, a prostitute, a journalist, and a janitor. Some are married to women, some are married” to men, some are single; their families come from Yemen, Germany, Morocco, Romania, Egypt, Russia. They talk about their family backgrounds and early childhood memories, their first stirrings of sexuality and responses to those feelings. They reveal their emotional struggles as well as their religious and political views.

The conviction structuring this book is that by allowing these men to render their different worlds in their own words, their voices will produce a layered chorus approximating the vibrant cacophony of the Israeli street. A remarkably rich assemblage of anthropological fieldwork, the book also can be read as literaturethere are some fine storytellers hereor for pure human interest, as the narratives themselves are deeply moving.

Amir Sumaka'i Fink is a graduate student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Jacob Press is a graduate student in the Department of English at Duke University.