By James Miller
Times of San Diego
LA JOLLA, California — About 500 people showed up for the first J Pride Festival, held Saturday at Mandell Weiss Eastgate Park.
According to Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center CEO Betzy Lynch, J Pride is a place where attendees who are members of the Jewish and queer communities can be wholly themselves.
“No one should be asked to bifurcate their identity in order to feel safe somewhere,” Lynch said.
According to Lynch, even in a historically inclusive space like San Diego Pride — and in the world generally — “things are changing” for the Jewish community.
“It’s our responsibility to help people reimagine what it is to be a shared society,” Lynch said.
Mayor Todd Gloria joined Toni Atkins, Tasha Boerner, Chris Ward and other political dignitaries on the DJ stage midway through the festival.
Gloria and Ward, a member of the state Assembly, were among the few high-profile elected officials who appeared at both J Pride and the San Diego Pride Parade, where attendance appeared as robust as ever on Saturday.
Many officials pulled out of San Diego Pride events over the choice of the singer Kehlani as a headliner for this year’s San Diego Pride Festival. The fest, at Balboa Park, follows the morning Pride Parade.
They turned to J Pride once the alternative event was announced. Gloria said that for him as the mayor of San Diego, it’s critical “that people understand they are welcome here.”
“For many in this audience, there are some of you that felt like there (were) messages recently that say quite the opposite,” he said. “I want to say here clearly — and very directly — we will not be America’s Finest City without our Jewish community and without our LGBT community.”
Gloria thanked attendees. “Thank you for being a bulwark against hate and discrimination,” he said.
A media representative for the Lawrence Family JCC said the organization’s top priority at the event was safety; private security hired by the JCC cooperated with San Diego police, who cased the park with bomb sniffing dogs ahead of time.
Mandell Weiss Eastgate Park, the Lawrence Family JCC and a San Diego Police Department division share a city block.
J Pride did not publicly announce the location of the event and only shared it with attendees after they RSVP’d.
People were allowed to bring water bottles and small, clear bags into the event, and were subject to waves of metal-detecting wands upon entry.
Amidst booths staffed by restaurants and local Jewish organizations, Jamul Casino gave out bucket hats and backpacks next to a rainbow display glittering in the sun.
The casino’s Director of Advertising Katheirne Hoppe said J Pride felt like a party, and that the casino wanted a way to support the queer community after pulling out of the larger Pride Parade due to antisemitism concerns connected to Kehlani.
“We knew this was going on and we had the money allocated for the community, so we wanted to give it to someone where it would make a difference,” Hoppe said.
Janice Weinstein, a lesbian and a member of Chavurat Shir Ha-Yam, an egalitarian Jewish renewal community in San Diego, said it was powerful to feel welcomed by the larger Jewish community at J Pride.
According to Weinstein, San Diego Pride did not live up to their values by embracing Kehlani.
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This article initially appeared in Times of San Diego which shares stories with San Diego Jewish World.
There is a long history of Jews doing their own thing after being locked out.
We were excluded from country clubs, so we formed our own.
We were excluded from Ivy League schools, so we founded Brandeis University.
We were kicked out of many nations throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, so we reclaimed Israel, building a small, but mighty nation with a robust economy and a crackerjack military, and we are not going anywhere.
Lol Zionist fest ok. It isn’t a pride unless it a gathering of people against ALL opression. That includes palestinians and Jews against genocide
Proud of our community for supporting each other.