{"id":169302,"date":"2026-06-20T16:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/169302\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:02:11","slug":"roy-freeman-building-a-comfortable-community-for-lgbt-olim-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/169302\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Freeman: Building a comfortable community for LGBT olim in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making aliyah is sometimes more of a challenge than people openly admit, but finding a community can really help make people feel welcome and settle in. British-born Roy Freeman aims to help create such a community for those anywhere on the LGBT+ spectrum.<\/p>\n

Freeman grew up in Luton, north of London<\/a>, in a community that he describes as \u201csmall and dwindling.\u201d He spent a month in Israel when he was 18 on a visit that he says strengthened his Zionism. He had not come out yet, in terms of being open about his sexuality, and returned a few years later to work on a kibbutz in the North.<\/p>\n

He planned to make aliyah in the late 1990s and visited Israel on a pilot trip, but felt the time was wrong, noting that before trans singer Dana International won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998, the LGBT community in Israel<\/a> was a very different place and implying that he did not feel as comfortable in Israel during that time period as he would later come to feel.<\/p>\n

However, by the following year, he was out to most of his friends and had entered his first long-term relationship by the age of 25. Together, he and his then-partner moved to Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n

Freeman recalls how, in both London and Sydney, he joined LGBT Jewish community groups, as he says he felt more comfortable with other LGBT Jews. He managed the website of the London-based Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group and became president and Mardi Gras Parade float organizer of Sydney\u2019s Dayenu during his time in the respective cities.<\/p>\n

\"PRIDEPRIDE FLAGS are seen at the beach in Tel Aviv ahead of the city\u2019s annual Pride Parade, June 11, 2026. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

However, after 11 years in Sydney, he met an Israeli man who eventually wanted to return to Israel. Freeman came with him \u2013 in his words: \u201cI made aliyah so that we could stay together.\u201d The couple settled together in the Tel Aviv area, where Freeman still lives.<\/p>\n

In 2011, while seeking a community for himself in Israel, he found a group for LGBT English-speakers in Tel Aviv and began attending their events, later attending his first Tel Aviv Pride in June 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun, but after 11 years participating in Mardi Gras parades in Sydney, it felt unorganized and unstructured,\u201d Freeman recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a handful of LGBT groups marching, but everyone else was just milling around. It was a very different experience,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He notes how most of his attempts to join LGBT organizations within his first year in Israel were \u201cignored,\u201d and that he saw ads and flyers for LGBT parties and bars, but they did not interest him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found nothing else that was inclusive of non-Hebrew-speakers. It became obvious that we olim were expected to be fluent in Hebrew as we touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport<\/a>,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Freeman also notes how many Israeli-born LGBT people that he met could not understand why anyone would consider moving to \u201cwhat they considered to be a hopeless hellhole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter how many times I tried to explain how bad antisemitism was elsewhere, not to mention the institutionalized homophobia, I heard the same opinion time and time again,\u201d he recounts.<\/p>\n

Social media became a tool to connect with other LGBT community members<\/p>\n

This led Freeman to found LGBT Olim\u2019s Facebook page in April 2013. He notes that Facebook was the most widely used social media at the time, and he aimed to find other LGBT olim across Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I wasn\u2019t the only one, and I believed that many were looking for community. I bought a banner, and by June that year, there was a group of LGBT olim marching together at Tel Aviv Pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was surprised by the positive response to the Facebook page.<\/p>\n

\u201cI discovered that there were LGBT olim in cities, towns, kibbutzim, and moshavim all over the country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He then launched a monthly newsletter to inform people of events that would be of interest to LGBT English-speakers across Israel, as he realized that the core of the group risked becoming \u201ctoo Tel Aviv-centric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making contact with interested people in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beersheba, he started to organize meet-ups for LGBT English-speakers in those cities, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also tried getting a few local LGBT organizations on-side, but with limited success,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His organization received \u201ca lot of good publicity\u201d around Tel Aviv Pride 2013 and since, including in The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Chronicle, and other media outlets.<\/p>\n

He recalls that the organization also received negative comments, including hateful and threatening responses. Freeman says that he considers member security to be of the \u201cutmost importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before somebody can join events, he talks with them in order to check their intentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a very fine line between being welcoming and being intrusive, and I unfortunately haven\u2019t always got the balance right, but most olim understand the need for our security questions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Despite these challenges, Freeman says that he \u201clikes to think that we\u2019ve built a welcoming community over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to give LGBT new olim a soft landing, providing a place where they can build a social network without first being fluent in Hebrew,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Freeman works to create events for his community\u00a0<\/p>\n

Freeman also lists a variety of social events he organizes via LGBT Olim that are held on a regular basis, including Shabbat potluck dinners and brunches, LGBT-themed movie nights, karaoke events, board games sessions, trivia quizzes, and picnics, as well as special events around Jewish festivals, including Passover Seders, and parties at Shavuot, Sukkot, Purim, and Hanukkah.<\/p>\n

By doing so, he hopes to provide various ways that LGBT olim can feel comfortable being part of a community in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur events are mostly free \u2013 we don\u2019t want to exclude anyone based on cost,\u201d Freeman says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fully aware that many new olim are unemployed for months after arrival and many struggle to find work. So even when we meet at caf\u00e9s, restaurants, etc., I want people to know they can come along just for the social aspect, without any pressure to order anything,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

A large number of the events were only face-to-face, until the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>, when LGBT Olim started running online events. These events have since continued, largely aimed at being inclusive for those LGBT olim who live outside of major cities, Freeman clarifies.<\/p>\n

In order to help LGBT olim settle in Israel, Freeman arranges for free Hebrew classes, called Qulpan, a portmanteau of queer and ulpan, both online and in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

The online events have a further benefit of providing a space for LGBT future olim in the process of moving to Israel to build a community before their arrival, he highlights.<\/p>\n

However, there are several changes that Freeman wishes to make.<\/p>\n

One change includes wanting to work closer with aliyah agencies, including the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B\u2019Nefesh. He says both have been \u201cvery welcoming and supportive\u201d working with LGBT Olim on an informal level, but are \u201cstill unwilling to tell prospective olim about LGBT Olim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I could count on one hand the number of people who have told me they heard about us through their aliyah adviser,\u201d Freeman says, noting that he wishes the organization could market itself more widely, as he still finds \u201cLGBT olim who have not heard of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also highlights how he would \u201clove to hear from people who are LGBT and passionate about community building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roy Freeman, 52, from London to Tel Aviv via Sydney, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making aliyah is sometimes more of a challenge than people openly admit, but finding a community can really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[36985,4681,37,26770,503,26590,26771],"class_list":["post-169302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-covid-19","tag-facebook","tag-israel","tag-lgbt","tag-magazine","tag-olim","tag-pride-parade"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116783280789684259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}