The Israeli pride flag represents something powerful: the freedom to live openly, authentically, and without fear. 🌈🇮🇱 In a region where LGBTQ rights cannot be taken for granted, Israel is the one place where they can march proudly.

Welcome to the largest Pride Parade in the Middle East 🌈 Experiencing TLV Pride is a MUST for your bucket list. Video: @itsmezina__

The Gay Ayatollah has made an appearance in Tel Aviv! 💅 Next year, Pride in Tehran? 🏳️‍🌈 Video: Eylon Levy

Shout out to the incredible Daniel Ryan Spaulding for showing up and refusing to stay silent. While other venues and organizers across Europe refused to provide a platform for Kanye West's antisemitic rhetoric, the Netherlands chose to host him. Watching the reactions from many concertgoers was a stark reminder of how easily hatred can be normalized. Years of antisemitic statements, conspiracy theories, and praise for extremists have been dismissed, excused, or rebranded as entertainment. When a public figure repeatedly traffics in antisemitism and still receives applause, he normalizes people’s willingness to tolerate it.

The Knicks are finally winning. Omer Neutra should have been here to see it. A lifelong Knicks fan, Omer would have been among the crowd celebrating. He never got the chance to witness this moment. As New York celebrates this historic run, we can’t help to remember Omer, not only as a hostage murdered by Hamas on October 7, but as a son, a friend, and a devoted Knicks fan who would have been cheering louder than anyone.

Whether it’s sunshine, rain, or even missiles 😬, Tel Aviv is getting ready for #Pride 🌈 Israel hosts the largest Pride celebration in the Middle East. While the past two years have been overshadowed by war, Israelis remain determined to celebrate freedom, diversity, and the only country in the region where LGBTQ people enjoy full legal protections and equal rights.

Yet another celebrity acceptance speech, yet another detour into geopolitics from someone who clearly learned everything they know about the Middle East from Twitter. Ali Louis Bourzgui dedicated his Tony Award to immigrants and Palestinians, which would be admirable if the speech didn't lean so heavily on terms like "colonizers" and "fascists." These are words borrowed wholesale from American campus politics and dumped onto a conflict with a history, complexity, and context that has nothing to do with them. This is the problem with activist celebrity speeches. The passion is real, but the actual argument being made is lazy. Reducing one of the world's most complicated geopolitical conflicts to a social justice vocabulary is performative activism. These terms carry specific ideological weight rooted in Western academic and political discourse, and applying them to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict flattens decades of regional history, competing national narratives, and geopolitical realities into a bumper sticker. Award show stages are not known for nuance, but when public figures with large platforms reduce a multifaceted conflict to a villain-and-victim framework, they don't advance the Palestinian cause.

At a time when many public figures stay silent, @GwynethPaltrow is publicly standing with Israel. The Oscar-winning actress will front a new campaign in Herzliya, adding to her outspoken opposition to antisemitism and support for the hostages held by Hamas. Her decision is a reminder that supporting Israelis and rejecting antisemitism should never be considered controversial.

Kanye West's team continues to pursue performative gestures instead of doing the serious work required to address the damage caused by his antisemitism, make meaningful amends, and confront the realities of anti-Jewish hatred. The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam rejected a proposal for West to visit the institution, stating it would not serve as a platform to rehabilitate an image damaged by antisemitic statements. Accountability requires more than a photo opportunity. It requires genuine education, responsibility, and sustained action. i24news.tv/en/news/internati…

We absolutely love how Jewish comedian Menachem Silverstein handled this heckler. Chanting "Free Palestine" at someone simply because he is visibly Jewish isn't activism and it does absolutely nothing to help Palestinians. Menachem responded with humor, confidence, and dignity, exposing the absurdity of reducing an individual to a political target based solely on their identity.

The Dutch National Holocaust Museum has made its position clear: a memorial dedicated to Holocaust victims is not a platform for rehabilitating the image of someone who has repeatedly promoted antisemitic rhetoric and praised Hitler. As Kanye West continues touring Europe, the museum’s decision serves as a reminder that remembrance carries responsibility. Honoring the victims of history requires rejecting efforts to normalize or excuse the ideologies that targeted them. The museum’s rejection underscores a simple principle: accountability and Holocaust remembrance cannot be separated.

Pride Month is a time to celebrate courage, visibility, and the freedom to live openly and authentically. Israel remains the only country in the Middle East with vibrant LGBTQ communities, annual Pride celebrations, and legal protections that allow LGBTQ individuals to participate fully in public life. These achievements reflect a commitment to democracy, equality, and human dignity. But the fight isn’t over. LGBTQ people around the world continue to face discrimination, violence, and persecution simply for who they are. Pride is both a celebration of progress and a reminder that equal rights, safety, and dignity must be protected and expanded for everyone. Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈

Judith Leiber survived the Holocaust and went on to build one of the most iconic luxury brands in the world. You've probably seen her handbags on some of your favorite celebrities. This is the remarkable story of Judith Leiber.