Cheers, jeers as Amir Ohana becomes Israel's first LGBTQ Knesset speaker
Ultra-Orthodox Knesset members are being criticized by their religious leadership for voting in favor of appointing openly gay Amir Ohana as Knesset speaker.
Likud senior and former minister Amir Ohana has become the first openly gay Knesset speaker in Israel's history, becoming Israel's fourth most important figure in terms of protocol.
Ohana, 46, is used to breaking records. In 2011 he founded the Likud’s LGBTQ faction, the first such group within the political right. In 2013 he led a campaign for changing the Likud party's constitution to include battling gender-based discrimination. In 2015, he entered the Knesset, and in 2019 he became the first openly gay person to be nominated minister, serving first as justice minister and then as public security minister. He was also member of the Knesset’s prestigious Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
In 2015 was especially important for Ohana. In addition to becoming a Knesset member, he also became a father. He and his partner, mathematician Alon Haddad, had twins by a surrogate in the United States.
Within just a few years, Ohana had managed to make a place for himself in the Likud leadership by becoming one of Netanyahu’s close confidants, as reflected in his 2019 appointment as justice minister. With Netanyahu facing corruption charges, Ohana led a campaign against judicial activism. Ohana was Netanyahu’s personal candidate for the position of Knesset speaker, and the prime minister greeted him and his partner warmly in his inauguration speech.
