A fatal attack on a counseling center for gay youths has sparked a reevaluation of tensions between orthodox religious teachings and minority rights in democratic but divided Israel.

Israeli president Shimon Peres spoke before more than 25,000 demonstrators in Tel Aviv Saturday - a week after a man disguised in black killed two and wounded 15 with an Uzi submachine gun.

“Israel will not put up with such an injustice and will not rest until the murderer is brought to trial,” Peres told the crowd. “The bullets that hit the gay community last week hurt us all. The person who shot Nir Katz and Liz Trobishi [the two youths killed in the incident] aimed his gun at you, at me, at all of us.”

Chaos at the crime scene in Tel Aviv.

Following a Thursday visit to the shooting scene by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Nachmani gay center Manager Yaniv Waizman, 35, called it a historic occasion of recognition for the gay community. “This is the first time a sitting prime minister and a sitting president have attended gay community events,” said Waizman. “The people of Israel got a very strong message about the dangers they fear from homophobia.”

Despite the government’s call for unity and sympathy, a poll conducted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz indicates that 46 percent of Israelis think homosexuality is deviant behavior.

One particular rift in Israeli society which raised suspicions after the shooting is between Secular Jews and the ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews who strictly follow the halakha Jewish law. Because the shooter dressed in all black, much like the Haredi, it was suspected that the killer might be linked to the conservative religious sect. Previous evidence of tensions between the Haredi and the gay community includes a 2005 gay pride parade in Jerusalem where a Haredi stabbed a marcher to death.

Because Waizman’s social club is a clandestine place for counseling of homosexual high school students, Haredi columnist Jonathan Rosenblum shares a suspicion growing in Tel Aviv’s gay community that the shooter may have been to the center before.

“The initial comments in the media on the shooting did not put the Haredi in a very good light, which happens too often in the media,” said Rosenblum. “There is not one shred of evidence. It is literally ridiculous. You would think that there is no gay bashing in any place where there is Haredi. Matthew Shepard was killed in Wyoming, where there are no Haredi.”

In a similar vein, LGBT activist Dany Zack of Jerusalem’s Open House wrote previously that the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard in the United States made hate crimes in Israel only a matter of time.

“In a country where the laws are progressive and the people are not, there is a recipe for violence if there no education about it,” said Zack. “The worst part is apathy, because some people receive a separatist education at home.”

Since the religiously conservative countries of the Arab world frown on homosexuality, Tel Aviv is the main openly gay scene in the Middle East, with the exception of a smaller scene in Beirut, Lebanon, said Zack.

“Regarding incitement about issues ranging from Palestine to homophobia, the kipa [yarmulke] is a protection. When hatred gets a religious tone, it gets forgiven. Whether it was an ultra Orthodox behind this shooting or not, it is the incitement of right wing elements that is responsible.”

Assuring Tel Aviv citizens about the ongoing search for the shooter who was dressed in black, Chief Inspector Alex Kagalsky of the Israeli National Police did not draw a connection with the 2005 stabbing.

“The 2005 stabbing was a reaction to a specific event,” said Kagalsky. “The fact that there were injuries is very rare in Tel Aviv, even with the Arabs in Jaffa where there is more serious tension. We have a very progressive city, and I think it will continue to be that way.

Tel Aviv’s counseling and activist group GLBT Israel, known as “The Aguda,” has pressed the sympathetic Netanyahu for gay hate crimes to be treated as terror attacks, which under Israeli law would provide benefits to victims. While waiting for a decision on that issue, Aguda spokesman Izik Zror nonetheless remained hopeful.

“Even though the leaders are here because it’s a memorial, people are talking about gay rights in the wake of the shooting,” said Zror. “We look only at the 54 percent of the survey who think homosexuality isn’t deviant.”

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