The Guilford Green Foundation in concurrence with the Greensboro Jewish Federation will be hosting two Zoom events featuring two LGBTQ individuals with Israeli backgrounds. Mohammad Zoabi and Hen Mazzig have both served within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Zoabi’s lecture will take place on April 15 at 12:00 p.m. and Mazzig’s will take place on April 16 at 12:00 p.m. Both of these events are completely free.
The conversation led by Zoabi, titled “The Israeli Arab Experience,” will be about the relationships that exist between Arabic individuals, Jewish individuals and the LGBTQ community. As a young former military man, Zoabi spent the entirety of his life fluctuating between his Muslim family and those within the Jewish high school that he attended.
In 2014, Zoabi made headlines for being involved in internet harassment and death threats. The headline reads “Jewish terror victim hid Arab Zionist Teen During Gaza War.” (bit.ly/3a91X8g) The woman who took Zoabi into her home was left for dead by reported Palestinian terrorists, who had stabbed her and the other woman who was with her.
While Zoabi’s host survived, the other woman did not. This interreligious collaboration and empathetic acts are some of Zoabi’s most prominent topics. They are the same principles he uses to explain the respect the LGBTQ community also deserves.
Mazzig’s lecture, titled “Liberal, Progressive, and Zionist,” will be about the concurrent experience of being LGBTQ and pro-Israel. Most of his calls to action have taken place on social media, particularly Twitter. In the summer of 2020, he garnered interest in his mission against antisemitism via celebrity participation on social media.
He was also the head of the Transgender and Health Department at the Nir Katz Center. This reporting center is responsible for collecting information about discriminatory acts performed against the LGBTQ community (bit.ly/3mIVPZk).
To register for Zoabi’s lecture, go to bit.ly/3mRAblN.
To register for Mazzig’s lecture, go to bit.ly/329HQ5z.
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