In a sparkling, beaded black dress and stilettos, 30-year-old "Gallina Port des Bras" bid welcome from the stage of "Mikveh" — the self-proclaimed "one and only lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight-friendly club in Jerusalem." Smacking her strawberry red lips and flipping her long blond wig, Port des Bras — whose offstage name is Gil Naveh — told Al-Monitor that though Jerusalem has bred the country’s most famous drag queens, the city is no easy place to be a drag queen, or for that matter gay.
“Jerusalem is one of the craziest cities in the world. It’s very religious but also very free. It’s the most beautiful city in the world, but has some of the ugliest sides of humanity in it,” he said. Raised in a very secular family and coming out at the age of 13, he said he was also raised in a bubble. Naveh — among the organizers of the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade to take place on Aug. 1 — said he has never been attacked himself, but seen it happen to several of his friends. He explained that it is not so much the frequency of incidents of violence, but the constant awareness of the threat of violence.
