A three-day fair on surrogacy in Tel Aviv. Photos by David Bachar
Original Post: By Danna Harman on Haaretz.com 2/18/13
It’s a spring-like Friday morning in mid-February at the Landver Café in Tel Aviv’s Gan Meir park, and young couples in trendy sneakers are ordering up cappuccinos, reading the papers, fiddling around on iPads and rearranging the outdoor chairs so as to catch the sun rays of the day. Almost everyone here is simultaneously rocking a stroller, or two, or bouncing a baby, or two, on their laps. And almost every grown-up here is a man.
As Tel Aviv winds down from the work week and heads into Shabbat, this relaxed, baby- friendly gay scene is the new normal, and a clear indication of the baby boom taking place within the gay male community in Israel over the past few years.
Long considered a gay party mecca, open-minded and permissive Tel Aviv still takes pride in the steamy saunas, all-night clubs and hot single men on the prowl that have given the city its famed status as a top gay tourist destination. But the city is also growing up. These days, the local gay scene is as likely to include parents’ support groups and school plays as foam parties and dark back rooms with handsome strangers.
A sure sign of the times was the main poster for the most recent Tel Aviv Pride parade, one of the city’s largest annual events, which featured, as the symbols of the festivities, two real-life gay fathers and their children.
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