Middle East
‘This wedding is both defiance and pride’
IDF reservist married partner in Ein Yahav on Nov. 22
WDG is the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel. This article ran on WDG’s website on Nov. 23.
Among dozens of reservists who became a family, with a spontaneous canopy at the B&B in Ein Yahav and refreshments donated with much love from Eilat businesses and residents, Adam Din and Ilan Cohen held their wedding ceremony Nov. 22.
“We did this wedding because it is important to us that the world knows that there is love even in the middle of the war and that we can celebrate love as well through it all,” said the couple.
Adam and Ilan’s wedding was scheduled to take place about two weeks ago on the beach between Ashdod and Nitzanim. The invitations were already prepared, but the terrible massacre on Oct. 7, and the war that broke out in its wake, postponed all their plans.
Ilan was immediately drafted into the reserves in the Gaza Division, leaving Adam alone at home. Nati Harosh, the couple’s best friend who was supposed to be the groomsman at the wedding, was also drafted into the reserves as a Givati Brigade fighter.
“We were supposed to get married on the beach,” says Adam, “The war postponed the wedding, and also took Nati.”
Adam and Ilan met a year and eight months ago.
“We met on Tinder, not for a serious purpose,” says Adam. “After we met, Ilan introduced me to a group of travelers from the gay community and we used to go on trips together. Over time we got to know each other more and more and in an organic and natural way we became together. It never had an official date.”
The short acquaintance was very significant for both of them.
“I was in the closet in front of the family before I met Ilan, and also childfree. And getting to know Ilan changed me completely,” says Adam. “I came out in front of my family and introduced them to Ilan, and I also decided that I wanted us to become parents together. My life changed thanks to him and we are really a family.”
The first friend Adam introduced to Ilan was Nati.
“Nati is a friend of mine from the time I lived in Jerusalem during my internship. We met through mutual friends and became very close friends. Nati was a giving person, like the meaning of his name Nathaniel. One of those people who were untouched by the cruelty of the world. Always ready to help. Doesn’t hold a grudge even when he is treated badly, and I would get angry for him and he wouldn’t get angry,” says Adam.
“Nati’s move from Jerusalem to Ramat Gan was one of the reasons that led us to move there as well, and since then we have been at each other’s house a lot on Shabbat,” he adds. “Nati came from a religious family, and he is liberal and open and loves every person regardless of who they are. And it was very clear and natural to me that he would be the one to accompany me on this significant occasion of mine. In the Utah wedding we held in Zoom, Nati was my witness, and we planned for him to be the groomsman in the wedding party.”
An April Fool’s prank that turned into a marriage proposal
Adam proposed to Ilan a few months ago.
“On April 1, we repeated one of our significant dates at the Saker Garden in Jerusalem,” says Adam, “Then Ilan knelt down as if he was going to propose to me and took out a Kinder egg. Kind of an April Fool’s prank. He thought it was funny. So I decided to get back at him and a few months later I also gave him a Kinder egg, only my Kinder egg had a ring in it.”
Three months ago, the two were married in a Utah wedding on Zoom in order to receive recognition as a couple who married abroad, with Nati accompanying them as a witness. They planned to hold the party itself at the beach between Ashdod and Nitzanim, at the exact place where Adam proposed to Ilan. About two months ago they returned to the place, found the perfect location for the wedding and we set a date.
But as mentioned, the events of Oct. 7 postponed the plans, and Ilan was drafted into the reserves.
“During his reserve service, Ilan saw horrible and terrible sights,” says Adam, “[It is] a horror that has no name, that gives him nightmares and scars his heart and soul. But when he comes home he comes to his shelter and his safe environment. Here he can get away for a moment from the horror outside. With the announcement of Nati’s death, the bereavement burst into our house, into our safe place.”
The two found out about Nati’s death through a news website.
One evening at the beginning of November, when Ilan was at home for a short break, a message about the death of a Givati Brigade soldier in Gaza popped up on his phone.
“He fell silent and went to the side,” Adam recalled. “His face went blank, the way it went blank when he remembered the terrible things he saw there. I asked him what he saw. He didn’t want to show me and started crying. I asked him again what happened and then he told me that Nati died. I didn’t believe him and then he showed me the news. I looked and couldn’t believe what I was reading. I saw Nati’s photo in the article and I said, ‘What idiots, they accidentally put a photo of Nati. What a mistake.'”
“I quickly called Nati to tell him to ask for the photo to be taken down so his family wouldn’t see it, but he didn’t answer,” he added. “Since then I send him WhatsApps all the time. Yesterday I sent him a selfie of us and wrote to him: Tomorrow I’m getting married, you’re invited.”
Many people will have to die for there to be equality
After Nati was killed, the two felt that the wedding was becoming more urgent. Ilan told the story of the wedding to his friends in the reserve battalion, and also told them about Nati, who was killed in the war.
“He told them that the wedding is now more urgent than ever, and that it is precisely now in this war that love should be celebrated, and his friends suggested that the wedding be held in the unit. Two days ago he came to me and asked: What are you doing on Wednesday? And I answered him that I was working. Then he asked me, do you want to get married? I told him yes and asked him if he was coming back from the reserves, and he told me: No. We will do it in the battalion.”
WDG: Did you felt complete with the choice?
ADAM: Ilan and his colleagues have been together for over a month. When I talk to him I hear them, and I hear him talking about them, they really became family. So although the wedding is spontaneous without my friends and family being able to come, it is being held with his family, who are actually the army and the friends from the reserves. And Nati will be there in spirit too. He died among soldiers, so we will feel his love among other soldiers who will be happy with us”
WDG: How does it feel to have a “military wedding”?
ADAM: This is not the wedding I expected, but I always told Ilan that I would marry him even inside a volcano. Everywhere. At the same time, this wedding has a lot of mixed emotions. This period is full of sadness and disappointment. The LGBTQ community is an equal partner in the national effort and the war, and its men and women do not receive equal status when they return home.
We could get married like everyone else but we have to do it in a crooked way with Zoom, and in no way, LGBTQ people are literally dead to protect us but no one counts them.
Ilan has been in service for a month and a half, and yet he had to find crooked ways to get married, feeling that he is worth less than other people, who don’t even join the army.
So for me this wedding is both defiance and pride. And this is the ambivalence. We feel a part and we sacrifice the most precious, and yet we don’t deserve to be married like everyone else and we are in a less good position. And yet we continue and get married in the middle of the war.”
WDG: Do you think that following this period, which highlights the gap between what we give to the state and what we receive, a change will come?
ADAM: For Sagi Golan’s law, Sagi had to die. Part of his mate is dead too, I guess. I do believe that we will have equal rights, I believe that many people will have to die for it.
WDG: What is it like to live when your partner is so far from home for such a long period of time?
ADAM: Since that terrible Saturday when he was called I have been sleeping on the sofa. I can’t sleep in bed without him. There are long periods when he is without reception on the phone and I am constantly refreshing the pages of the news sites, to see if anything has happened. And when he returns home afterwards there is a tremendous feeling of momentary relief and an opportunity to be together for a bit. Even though as a volunteer in the LGBTQ help line, even when he goes out to retire from the reserves, he takes a shift and volunteers remotely.”
The couple and WDG would like to thank WILLOW – Zimmer in Arava, for volunteering to host the ceremony.
The Washington Blade on Wednesday spoke with Max Polonsky, a queer American who lives in Israel, about the Iran war and its impact on the country.
“It’s been tiring,” Polonsky told the Blade during a telephone interview from his home in Jaffa, an ancient port city with a large Arab population that is now part of Tel Aviv.
Polonsky grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lived in D.C. for eight years before he moved to Israel in March 2022.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town that is roughly 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile that struck a hair salon in Beit Awa, a Palestinian town in the West Bank, on Wednesday killed four women and injured more than a dozen others.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on March 8, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have damaged hotels, airports, oil refineries, and other civilian and energy infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere. Israel on Wednesday attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The Associated Press notes roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the strategic waterway to ship traffic.
The war also left hundreds of thousands of people who were traveling in the Middle East stranded.
The Blade on March 6 spoke with Mario, who had stopped in his native Lebanon while traveling from the U.S. to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when the war began and authorities closed the country’s airspace. Mario is now back in the U.S.
Polonsky told the Blade there were “alarms all day … sometimes multiple alarms an hour, sometimes every hour, every two hours” on Feb. 28.
Israel’s Home Front Command typically issues warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sound 90 seconds before an expected strike.
People in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities in central Israel have 90 seconds to seek shelter if a rocket or missile is fired from Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. (Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group in Lebanon that Israel and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, launched rockets at the Jewish State after Khamenei’s death. Israel, in turn, continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip.) People who live close to Lebanon and Gaza have 15 seconds to seek shelter.
Polonsky has a safe room — known as a “mamad” — in his apartment. Polonsky also uses it as his home office and a second bedroom.
He told the Blade the alerts in recent days have become less frequent.
“We’ll get maybe a handful of alarms during the day, maybe some at night,” said Polonsky.
Israel on June 12, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade. An Iranian missile destroyed Mash Central, the city’s last gay bar.
Iran on Oct. 1, 2024, launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. This reporter arrived in Israel three days later to cover the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and the impact the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip had on LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians.
‘Iranian regime was bad’
Polonsky admitted he doesn’t “know what to think” about the latest war against Iran.
“I don’t know what I think about the war,” he said. “Ultimately what happens is just not in my personal control: whatever Donald Trump, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the ayatollah, whoever is running Iran are going to organize and launch attacks and reach any deals is not anything I personally have any control over, so I try to just kind of let that aspect of it go as I’m living my life.”
Polonsky told the Blade he understands “there are very serious questions about how” the war started, and Congress’s role in it.
“Those are serious and valid, important questions,” he said. “And at the same time, the Iranian regime was bad.”
Polonsky noted Iran has supported and funded Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other groups “who were attacking Israel.” Polonsky added the Iranian government has “terribly oppressed their people.”
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Reports indicate Iranian authorities killed upwards of 30,000 people during anti-government protests that began late last year. Sources with whom the Blade spoke said LGBTQ Iranians are among those who participated in the demonstrations.
“I’m not sad to see them pressured,” said Polonsky, referring to the Iranian regime.
He also described Khamenei as “a bad guy.”
“Him not being there is better,” said Polonsky.
Iran
Man stuck in Lebanon as Iran war escalates
Mario was traveling to India when conflict began on Feb. 28
The Washington Blade on March 6 spoke with a man who remains stuck in Lebanon because of the escalating Iran war.
Mario, who asked the Blade not to publish his last name, lives in the U.S., but was born in Lebanon. He decided to stop in the country to see his doctor before traveling to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when airline personnel announced “we cannot fly anymore” because authorities had closed the country’s airspace.
The U.S. and Israel earlier that day launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, and other countries.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on Sunday, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have also damaged civilian infrastructure, including hotels and airports in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, Israel.
The war has left Mario and hundreds of thousands of others stranded in the Middle East.
“I had to come back home,” Mario told the Blade.
“Luckily, I’m with family,” he added.
‘War is between Israel and Hezbollah’
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, after Khamenei’s death launched rockets at Israel. The Jewish State in response has carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon.
Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah the following day began to launch rockets into Israel.
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024, killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s long-time leader. Iran four days later launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel.
The U.S. helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that took effect on Nov. 27, 2024. Israel nevertheless continued to carry out airstrikes in Lebanon.
Israel on June 13, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of the annual Tel Aviv Pride parade.
Mario noted the Israeli airstrikes have targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in Dahiyah, a Beirut suburb that is predominantly Shia, and in southern Lebanon.
His family’s home is about five miles from downtown Beirut. Mario said there is a mountain “that separates me from the area that is being bombed, so I don’t even hear the sounds.”
“Lebanon is such an interesting juxtaposition, because depending on which area you are in, your quality of life can be different during these times,” he said. “Right now, the war is not between Israel and Lebanon as a government. The war is between Israel and Hezbollah.”
“If you are in the areas where Hezbollah is concentrated, then you are severely impacted,” added Mario. “If you are in other areas, even if they are Shia or … Muslims that usually align themselves with Hezbollah, you’re still relatively in a safe place, in a safe location.”
Israeli evacuation orders have prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in Dahiyah and in southern Lebanon.
Mario said many of the evacuees are sleeping in their cars, or on the street. He also noted a video that showed a shepherd with his sheep and goats on a highway in downtown Beirut.
“He took his animals with him because he had to vacate where he was living,” said Mario. “That’s the first time you see in downtown Beirut maybe 100 goats walking the streets with two people sitting on jackasses and herding them.”
“It is very absurd,” he added.
The Lebanese government has opened schools and public shelters for people who have been displaced, but Mario said many of them do not have enough food. He also said gas prices have increased, and people are afraid to drive.
“It really saddens me seeing the kids affected by it,” said Mario. “Hezbollah made this decision, and it was a unilateral decision.”
“I doubt that the Shia people support them,” he added, referring to Hezbollah. “They cannot say it out loud that they do not support them, but I doubt people are happy within less than two years, for the second time in a row, to have to leave their homes and try to find a place to stay.”
Lebanese government urged to develop LGBTQ-inclusive plan for displaced people
Article 534 of Lebanon’s Penal Code states “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature is punishable” by up to a year in prison. Several judges in recent years have opted not to use the statute to prosecute LGBTQ people who have been charged under it.
Helem, a Lebanese LGBTQ and intersex rights group, on March 4 called upon the Lebanese government and international NGOs to develop a response to the Israeli airstrikes that is “comprehensive, fair, and inclusive of all groups, without exception or discrimination.
“The experience of the previous war demonstrated that state response plans were not sufficiently inclusive of displaced LGBTQ+ individuals,” said Helem. “Many faced compounded challenges, including the inability to access state collective shelters, exposure to harassment or violence, difficulty accessing health and psychosocial services, and fear of disclosing their gender identity or sexual orientation due to stigma and discrimination.”
“Any emergency plan that fails to take the most vulnerable groups into account exposes their lives and dignity to additional risks,” added the group.
Helem also made the following requests:
• Integrating a rights-based and nondiscrimination approach in all stages of planning and implementation, ensuring safe and equal access to assistance and services.
• Training staff working in shelters and emergency response on principles of protection from gender-based violence and discrimination, including issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation.
• Reassessment of the currently adopted shelter model, which relies exclusively on the concept of the “traditional family” aligned with a specific social structure. In practice, this leads to the systematic exclusion of non-traditional families and individuals who do not belong to conventional family units, including LGBTQ+ individuals, survivors of domestic violence, migrant workers, and people without supportive family networks.
• Involving civil society organizations specialized in gender issues and LGBTQ+ rights in the design, implementation, and monitoring of the emergency response plan.
• Establishing clear monitoring and accountability standards to ensure that violations or discriminatory practices do not occur during the implementation of the emergency plan.
“Disasters and conflicts do not justify the suspension of rights or the neglect of marginalized groups. On the contrary, the need for a humanitarian approach grounded in dignity and equality becomes even more urgent in times of crisis.”
“Helem places its expertise and experience at the disposal of relevant authorities and affirms its readiness to cooperate to ensure that the emergency plan is more just, effective, and inclusive,” said Helem. “Dignity is indivisible, and protection must include everyone without exception.”
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
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