Itai Pinkas

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Itai J. Pinkas (born 1973) is a public figure and prominent leader of the Israeli gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual community (LGBT). Pinkas served as chair of the national LGBT association in Israel and today is a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council.^[1] He also serves as a counselor to the mayor of Tel Aviv regarding LGBT affairs. Since January 2004, he has served as the chairperson of the board for the Dan Region Association of Towns for Environmental Issues & Sewage. Pinkas is also currently active in the Labor Party.

[edit] Biography

Pinkas grew up in Herzliya and is a reserve army officer in the IDF holding the rank of captain. He has an LL.B in law from the Tel Aviv University Law School as well as an MBA from the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, specializing in public policy. From 2000 to 2002, Pinkas served as chair of the national LGBT association. However, prior to his becoming chairperson, the association was suffering an economic crisis. Under Pinkas' leadership, the LGBT association experienced the most rapid period of growth in its history: three new LGBT chapters were established in Beersheba, Kiryat Shmona and Eilat, while media visibility and community involvement increased considerably. He also played an integral role in acquiring the newspaper HaZman HaVarod (The Pink Times) for the association. Financially, Pinkas set up an internal system to recruit funding including an authorization for tax-free donations from both Israel and the United States. Through this process, Pinkas put the association on financially stable footing; it was able to payoff substantial amounts of debt.

As chairman of the board for the Dan Region Association of Towns for Environmental Issues & Sewage, Haaretz magazine TheMarker named Pinkas one of the “100 most influential people in Israel” in its September 2006 issue. Under the category “Those Who Influence the Environment,” TheMarker explained:

For more than two years, Pinkas has been head of one of the prominent public infrastructure bodies in Israel. In this period he has promoted many projects that had been stalled for years: beginning to build the continental Sludge Treatment Factory of the Dan Region Association of Towns for Environmental Issues & Sewage and halting its emission into the Mediterranean Sea; progress toward establishing an Israel Sewage Expressway, progress on a sewage pipeline, upgrading the sewage infrastructures throughout The Gush Dan region, and adding new local authorities as clients to the company as Yehud, Beit Dagan, Lod etc.

In 2003, Pinkas was elected to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council where he secured an allocation of the municipal budget to establish a cultural center for the LGBT community. The center, located in Gan Meir was officially launched as part of the 2008 Tel Aviv pride festival. More importantly, the LGBT center is the first in the world fully financed by the Tel Aviv municipality and operated by city employees. Pinkas also initiated the commission of the first Israeli monument to honor the tens of thousands of homosexual Holocaust victims. The memorial in Tel Aviv will be situated in Gan Meir next to LGBT municipal center.

In 2005, Pinkas married his partner Yoav Arad as part of a public campaign to compel the state of Israel to recognize same-sex marriages. Their marriage was performed in Canada, the only country at that time which granted same-sex marriages to foreign citizens. Their request to have the marriage registered by the Interior Ministry was denied. However, in the end of 2006, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled the couple was, entitled to register their marriage in the Population Registry.

In June 2008, Pinkas was awarded the highest accolade in Israel’s environmental community - the "Green Globe" - for his work as chairperson of the Dan Region Association of Towns in transforming the association into a 100% recyclable organization. The "Green Globes" recognize the most significant pro-environmental advancement in Israel each year.

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