ynet and Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Lihi Gordon will receive the 2026 LGBTQ Visibility Award for journalism that promotes equality.
The award will be presented Sunday, May 31, during the Visibility Awards ceremony, held as part of the National LGBTQ Conference in Ramat Gan. The event is organized by the municipality and led by Deputy Mayor Assaf Weiss, who holds the city’s LGBTQ community portfolio.
Gordon leads LGBTQ coverage for ynet and the Yedioth Ahronoth group. In the award committee’s reasoning, she was recognized for advancing public awareness of violence against the LGBTQ community over the past year, and for extensively covering budget cuts and their impact on community organizations and municipal LGBTQ programs.
Alongside Gordon, organizers announced that this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award will go to Shimon Shirazi, one of the central figures in Israel’s LGBTQ cultural and nightlife scene for more than 40 years.
Shirazi has been behind some of the community’s largest events, including Pride parades and major productions, and is credited with helping turn LGBTQ nightlife from underground events into a broad cultural phenomenon. Over the years, he has also worked as an artistic director, promoted public campaigns and protests, and his collaboration with Offer Nissim became one of the symbols of LGBTQ culture’s entry into the Israeli mainstream.
Assaf Weiss, deputy mayor of Ramat Gan and chair of the LGBTQ Visibility Award committee, said the National LGBTQ Conference was created “to provide a place where the leading leadership of Israel’s LGBTQ community can gather for a discussion about the future of the community and our struggle for equality and tolerance in Israel.”
“The LGBTQ Visibility Awards are a celebration of LGBTQ culture and support for the community, and it is a great privilege for us to honor leading media figures who promote positive LGBTQ visibility on a daily basis,” he said.