Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade 2017

After attracting over 200,000 people from all over the world in 2016, the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade is primed to get even bigger in 2017. You won’t want to miss your chance to show your pride and support the LGBT community at the city’s most electric event of the year.

The parade starts off in Gan Meir and heads down Ben Yehuda Street before finishing with the wild and famous outdoor party at Charles Clore Park on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Don’t forget that the parade is just the culmination of Tel Aviv’s celebration of Gay Pride, and you can find LGBTQ cultural events throughout the weeks leading up to the parade.

Check out all the Tel Aviv Gay Pride 2017 Events >>

Read what people love about Tel Aviv Pride >>

Find a hotel for Tel Aviv Gay Pride Week 2017 >>

As long as you’re here, check out the renowned Tel Aviv restaurant scene >>

And of course, don’t forget about the beach! >>

About LGBTQ in Tel Aviv

In 2012, Gaycities.com and American Airlines announced that gay travelers had voted Tel Aviv the world’s best city for gay tourism, and the Hilton beach ranked among the world’s top 10 gay beaches, cementing Tel Aviv’s reputation as a welcoming hot spot for the gay community.

This side of the city is on full display every year during the Tel Aviv Pride Parade and surrounding festivities, which have grown to attract upwards of 200,000 participants from Israel and all over the world and make the parade the largest of its kind in Israel, as well as other events such as the TLVFest International LGBTQ Film Festival, the Tel Aviv Water Games International LGBT Sports and Cultural Festival and many more.

Tel Aviv held it’s first Pride Parade in 1998, and although it started out quite modestly, it gradually gained momentum for over a decade before hitting over 100,000 participants every year since 2011 and peaking at over 12,000 in 2015.

The Pride Parade serves not only to mark a celebratory event for the gay community in Israel and worldwide, but also the massive shift for the better in Israel’s attitude towards the gay community over the years. At the beginning of the State, Israel as a whole, even Tel Aviv, held largely conservative views on homosexuality. That dynamic began to change in the 1990s with the first attempts to hold public events to celebrate gay-pride in Tel Aviv. Those efforts blossomed into a  revolution in 1998 as the city held its first Pride Parade.

Israel’s reputation as a destination for gay travelers has been almost constantly on an upward trajectory, a trend that is likely to continue as the local gay community continues to grow and gay travelers keep descending in masses on the the most gay-friendly city in the Middle East.

Read more about what makes Tel Aviv one of the top LGBTQ travel destinations in the world >>

Photos: Courtesy of the Tel Aviv Municipality/Kfir Sivan, Kfir Bolotin, Yossi Keret