Nitzan Horowitz announced his intention to run for election to Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, against the incumbent Ron Huldai.

Horowitz, of the left of centre Meretz party, is the country’s only openly gay Member of the Israeli Knesset (MK), a post he intends to resign if elected to the be the mayor of Tel-Aviv.

His annoncement yesterday (6 May) pits the 49 year-old Horowitz against Labor’s Huldai in the 22 October elections.

If he wins, he would become Tel Aviv’s first openly gay mayor, and the first in any Israeli city or the Middle East.

A high school mathematics teacher who openly talked to some of her students about being a transgender woman was summoned to a hearing for her dismissal.

Marina, who has been for the past three years an outstanding teacher and mentor, says Israel’s Center for Educational Technology (CET) wants her fired for merely discussing her gender identity.

In her first move as Israel's new health minister, Yael German instructed the ministry staff today (25 March) to reconsider the ban on accepting blood donations from gay men.

The form filled out by every blood donor in Israel states that men who have had sex with other men are prohibited from donating blood.

People who are HIV positive, used drugs or been exposed to mad-cow disease, among other constraints, are also prohibited from donating blood.

Jewish celebrity and legendary comic Joan Rivers has given her support to an Israeli gay couple trying to have a child using surrogacy.

As surrogacy is illegal for two men in Israel, Yuval and Liran Kaduri-Altman are trying to raise awareness of the anti-gay law while trying to get the money to have their baby in the US.

Memebers of the Kenesset (MKs), Israel’s parliament, are to re-establish a gay pressure group to advance LGBT rights and combat homophobia.

The pressure group or caucus will be headed by MK Nitzan Horowitz (of Meretz party) and Ofer Shelah (of Yesh Atid party), and will be called ‘The Proud Caucus’, announced Horowitz today (20 February) on his Facebook page.

For the past week Use Your Mandate has been using Twitter, mailings in seven states and TV ads to knock Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense. The group insists it's made up of Democratic party LGBT operatives, but its members have chosen to be anonymous.

The couple, blonde beauty Chen Arizona and her husband, whose identity was not revealed, were cheered by Israeli celebrities, friends and family.

The wedding was televised by Israel’s Channel 2 evening news and watched throughout the country.

Arizona who runs a salon near Tel Aviv, was born Erez Yisraelof, one of four siblings, into a traditional Orthodox Jewish family.

A married Israeli gay couple has made legal history in the country when they filed the prenup agreement to be validated by an Israeli court.

The men, Elad Aflalo Farber and Roni Farber Aflalo were married 10 months ago in New York.

During a political panel organized by the Aguda, Israel’s largest LGBT rights group, representatives from the country’s leading political parties vowed to improve LGBT rights.

Politicians representing seven different political attended an election LGBT panel of Otzma, the Aguda’s LGBT political division, where they promised to actively promote and work for improving LGBT rights in Israel.

The panel was the first ever held in the country (4 January), ahead of the country’s general election next month.

Following a statement by a religious right-wing electoral candidate that gay marriages will destroy the Jewish people, Meretz, a left wing Israeli party, performed mock gay marriages outside Tel-Aviv's rabbinical court.

The protests were lead by out gay Israeli MP Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) who also conducted several mock 'gay marriages', some of them marrying straight supporters of equality to their same-sex friends. 

The anti-gay statements were condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, ahead of Israel's general election next month.

Naftali Bennett, chair of Habayit Hayehudi, a right-wing Israeli religious political party, said that he opposes same-sex marriage.

Israel is in the midst of political campaigns for the country’s elections on the 22 January 2013.

Answering a question regarding same-sex marriage from a student during a political campaign on Tuesday (25 December), Bennett was quoted by the daily Haaretz as saying: ‘These are two clashing values.

Madonna's MDNA was the highest grossing tour of 2012, beating pop rival Lady Gaga.

The Material Girl made more than $228 million in ticket sales, performing over 80 sell-out shows around the world, reports Billboard.

Her tour, which started in Israel in May and ends in South America this weekend, trounced nemesis and fellow gay icon Lady Gaga to the top spot.

The 26-year-old singer lagged behind in sixth place, raking in $125 million.