Tel aviv Pride
Lea DeLaria appeared as one of the Pride Ambassadors next to Alan Cumming.

Orange Is The New Black’s Lea DeLaria appeared as one of the Pride Ambassadors next to Alan Cumming.  

More than 200,000 people attended the largest ever Tel Aviv pride parade.

The European 2016 Pride season kicked off on Friday with the most popular ever Tel Aviv Pride Parade. Over 200,000 people from Israel and around the world attended to celebrate the biggest pride parade in the Middle East.

This year, the parade spotlighted ‘Women for a Change’ to highlight the role of women within the LGBTQ community.

DeLaria says she was honoured and “excited to be a Pride Ambassador for Tel Aviv Pride. Jewish girls are hot!”

The day started with music, shows and speeches, before the parade kicked off at Meir Park.

The Mayor of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality launched the parade, saying, “My friends, we have been marching for some years now, and we will keep on marching in pursue of equality.”

“We will keep marking these streets of Tel Aviv with the hope that the pluralism, tolerance and liberalism of this city will spread to the country, the Middle East and the world.”

The Tel Aviv Pride Parade is the only parade fully sponsored by the municipality. In fact, the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality allocates numerous resources to the promotion and support of the LGBTI community with a yearly investment of $1 million.

An estimated 35,000 tourists are projected to attend Tel Aviv pride events.