Changing TimesHow The AJN broke a barrier in 2000

Joshua Levi

N the year 2000 Hillary Clinton became the first First Lady to march in the annual Gay Pride rally in New York, the United Kingdom lifted the ban on homosexual people serving in the armed forces, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington for equal rights and in Sydney, for the first time, there was a Jewish float in the annual Mardi Gras parade.

Author Diane Armstrong and Holocaust survivor Susie Wise were joined by 160 Jews from Australia, South Africa, Israel, the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden and New Zealand on the “Stars of David Come Out” float.

Wise told The AJN at the time that “gay and lesbian people are expected to hide who they are and be ashamed of it, in the same way that I had to hide my Jewishness”.

At the time, it was heralded by the World Congress of Jewish Gay and Lesbian Organisations treasurer Mike Kook as “larger than any other Jewish gay and lesbian event in the world”.