Yaron McNabe is currently a junior at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He came out as gay to his family when he was 18. But McNabe was born in Israel, and when he served in Israeli Naval Intelligence from 1996 to 2000, he chose to remain closeted. “I guess it was a mistake,” he said of his decision to stay silent. “There’s a very fundamental thing about your life that you’re not exposing.”
On Tuesday, October 12, 185 students at Northwestern University gathered to hear McNabe and another gay Israeli veteran, Steve Dishler, speak about their experiences in the IDF, and to watch a screening of “Yossi and Jagger,” a film about being gay in the Israeli army. A recently-formed campus group for LGBT Jewish students co-sponsored the event with other student groups. “Yossi and Jagger,” which was released in the United States in 2003, follows the love affair of two gay Israeli soldiers stationed at the Israeli-Lebanese border. The film explores their love and their relationships with other soldiers.
After the film was screened, Dishler and McNabe discussed their personal experiences in the Army and as gay men. When McNabe was in the IDF, he did not initially choose to disclose his sexuality. Over time, though, he realized that if another soldier found out, he was vulnerable to blackmail. So, when during a routine interview six months shy of the end of his service it became clear to him that the officials interviewing him knew that he was gay, McNabe came out.
Steve Dishler is the Program Director for Israeli and International Affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Chicago. He was born in Chicago and moved to Israel in 1982, where he lived for 17 years. He says that he was not out “even to [him]self” during his IDF infantry service from 1984 to 1987. During those years, the IDF still had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning homosexuality similar to the US Army’s. That policy was repealed in 1993, five years after Israel abolished its anti-sodomy law, partly because homosexuality was used as an excuse by many to avoid Israel’s military service requirements.
Israel today is somewhat open to homosexuality, according to McNabe, but not entirely so. “Jerusalem is a very diverse city,” he said. So, while Pride parades have marched through the streets, the city is not universally accepting. Government incentives to keep Jews in the majority in the city have made Jerusalem “more religious,” according to McNabe, and those religious Jews have a tendency to be less open to homosexuality than the rest of the population. “There are millions out there who believe that we belong in hell,” McNabe said. “We shouldn’t be complacent.”
The entire evening was organized by Adam Riff, a senior political science and international studies major, in conjunction with Northwestern’s yet-to-be-named Jewish LGBT group. He was pleased with how the evening went. “I think it was pretty successful,” he said. “I was happy.” The film, Riff said, “deals with issues that I think people can relate to.” Riff noted that the many audience members were “freshmen who hadn’t been exposed to these types of things at all.” This year, Mr. Riff hopes to organize more events that “could be open to the broader community, besides being community building for LGBT Jewish students.” Megan Ballard, a freshman dance major, was glad she had attended the event. “I thought it was interesting,” she said. “I was surprised by the amount of freedom [within the IDF] in comparison to the US Army.”
But Dishler pointed out how despite the strides made in gay awareness and acceptance, it is not easy to be out in the military. “You’re counting on each other to save your life if it comes to that, and they count on you,” he said. “You don’t want to do something that’s going to alienate [you]. It makes it harder to be out because you don’t know the reactions of the company.”
