Tel Aviv declared world's best gay travel destination
In a world-wide survey hosted GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, pushing it ahead of other proud towns including New York, Toronto and London.
By Haaretz Tags: Israel travel Israel culture Tel AvivIsrael's LGBT community has a reason to be proud: It has officially been proclaimed the best gay travel destination of 2011.
In a world-wide survey conducted by GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, followed by New York City with 14 per cent, Toronto with 7 per cent, Sao Paulo with 6 per cent, Madrid and London with 5 per
cent each and New Orleans and Mexico City with 4 per cent each.
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Participants at the annual Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade sporting Israeli and Swedish flags, June 10, 2011. |
| Photo by: Moti Kimche |
The crowning title of Best City was just one of the categories included in the competition of gay destinations. New York scored top votes for Best Night Life, San Francisco took Best Pride, Paris won Best Food and Seattle got Best Settle Down City. The smaller city of Buffalo took in quite a few votes itself, and was declared Best Up and Coming City.
Tel Aviv has always been known as a gay-friendly place, but it upped its presence around the world this year with a number of different activities, including its Tel Aviv Gay Vibe campaign, organized in coordination with the municipality's Ministry of Tourism.
About 5,000 gay tourists were recorded as visiting Tel Aviv last June for the annual Gay Pride Parade – 25 percent more than in 2010. Now that it's been voted best city, Tel Aviv can probably expect even more foreign visitors this June.
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Israel: A Tale of Two [Jewish] Countries = Scandinavian style liberalism vs Iranian style theocracy - Kingdom of Judah vs Kingdom of Israel. The Philistines and Moabites are a part of the tale but not central to the story.
ADONAY MUST NOT BE HAPPY WITH IT !
Better yet; maybe jerusalem can become known as a best travel destination for straight people! or for freedom loving people? or for truth telling people? or for non muslim no jihadi people?
Good for you Israel , I bet the Haridis and the Gay community of the world claim Israel as their capital one day. wow! what a combination.
Likely, Tel Aviv is not all Israel.
Finally some good news.. I have stopped reading the newspaper in the morning.. as my country is scarily moving to the right.
Can we expect more 'pinkwashing' jibes now from the 'oh so liberal' New York Times?
TA did not win in any of the catagories mentioned yet won the general competition by a wide margin. I guess that means it's the easiest place to get laid and that the locals are happy to get screwed by whatever foreigner is available. Is that something to be proud of?
Gay people have been serving proudly in the Israeli military for years.
They do look so butch with their locks and all.
Tel Aviv shines out mainly for a combination of good weather and beaches. Sao Paulo, too, but Brazil is also notable for criminality.
I have no problem with gays when I first came to Israel I used to share an apartment at the absorbtion center with somebody gay but I don't want Israel to gain a reputation of being a great place to come visit if your gay, it like some Asian countries which are famous for sex tourism. Tel Aviv needs to be promoting itself a city as a family friendly families place to visit, advertise the beaches & cafes not the seedy side of things. Gay pride parades are not family friendly things and I actually think are counter productive for the gay community anyway, they want us to all believe gays are no different from anybody else and their sexuality should not be an issue but then they hold these big parades for the sole purpose of promoting homosexuality and all this proud to be gay nonsense. Are gay people ordinary individuals in which case they shouldn't be holding these parades or are they a sub culture which would mean they are different?
Now THAT is something to be proud of! Hahaha! That will look good on Tel Aviv's travel brochures. What a disgrace for Tel Aviv.
..But keep your homosexuality to yourselves. It is not like people are rushing to compete with you for this.. The more of you folks become homosexual, the better!
I could swear that is what I've seen on TV.. There must be a mistake..
Check out what is going on in Jerusalem. It will spread throughout the country. After all the Haredi and other religious sects multiply like bunnies!!!
Can you imagine what Hamas, Iran, Hizb etc think of this. Very 21st Century, something way ahead of their 12th Century views
what Israel's Haredi and Hasidic think of this as well. Try celebrating pride in Jerusalem, God help you. You will be violently lynched or worse as you would if it were Hamas etc...
someone couldn't resist bringing negativity to a nice media article ... so you decided to be racist... just like there are jews that are secular so are moslems that are secular, just like you have religious crazies on the jewish side you have on the moslem side too... I wonder what Shas has to say about this... if Islam is 12th century then Judaism must be 50 centuries ago view
But also what do the Rabbis think of this in West Bank and Jerusalem? You know, the one who throw acid on women's faces during the Shabbat, and protest on having women on posters
Is this "honor" something of which we can be proud?