“I married my best friend. When we get ready for a date, we both wear skirts and do each other’s makeup. It’s the most fun thing in the world,” says Israeli Premier League volleyball player Liza, or Elizabeth, Rotman, 29, describing her relationship with Avital Rotman, 35.
“Sometimes people don’t believe we’re a couple. They ask if we’re sisters, even though I don’t think we look alike at all. But the chemistry between us is so obvious that it’s the only thing they can think of.”
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Avi (right) and Liza Rotman. Each brought a dog from a previous relationship
(Photo: Coral Tuvi)
They have been together for four years and married for one. “We celebrated our first wedding anniversary last month, on May 5,” Avital says, then clarifies: “Elizabeth and Avital are our official names at the Interior Ministry, but everyone, everyone calls us Liza and Avi.”
So, Liza and Avi. How and where did you meet?
Liza says each of them has a slightly different version of the story. “I knew who Avi was before we met. She didn’t know who I was, and I knew she had broken up with someone and was single again. Then she followed me on Instagram, which was very suspicious, so I sent her a message. In my view, the fact that she followed me means she was hitting on me, but she says it was an innocent follow. I don’t know. I don’t believe her.”
Avi sees it differently. “Wait, look, there’s a six-year age gap between Liza and me. In my generation, there’s no such thing as, ‘He followed me, so he’s hitting on me.’ Instagram suggests people to me, so I follow them. Straight or LGBT, it doesn’t matter. I had just become single again and wanted to expand my social circle.”
Liza says they began messaging and met that same evening.
“How lesbian of us,” she says. “We met at a bar in Florentin and sat there until they closed the place. After four months, we had already decided to move in together. Each of us came with a dog from a previous marriage.”
When did you decide to get married? Was there a proposal?
Avi says that two months after meeting Liza, the two were riding together on a scooter when she noticed Liza glancing toward a bridal shop window.
“I realized she had some kind of dream in her head, that she wanted to be proposed to, because she’s a princess like that,” Avi says. “It took me a year to understand that I needed to step into the role of the one who proposes, because it was very important to her.”
For Avi’s birthday two years ago, Liza booked them a vacation in Berlin, and Avi began planning a surprise.
“I got a ring and everything I needed,” Avi says. “Before the flight, without her knowing, I went to her parents and asked her father for her hand, because she once told me that his approval was needed first.”
They spent three days in Berlin, celebrating, partying and enjoying themselves, and then went into nature for four more days.
“When we were in a beautiful place, an insanely stunning place, I realized the right moment had come,” Avi says. “I took out the ring, got down on one knee and proposed. She was very, very emotional, said yes very quickly, started crying a little from excitement, and then she pulled out a ring too. I thought I was surprising her, and she surprised me. We had a double proposal. Without planning it, we both chose the same place and the same time to do it. It was super moving.”
Where did you get married?
“We had an amazing wedding at the Gray club in Rishon Lezion,” Avi says. “We’re two Ashkenazi women with small families, so it was a relatively small wedding, 250 people, but 80% of them were young, which was really fun, and the wedding went on until about 3 or 4 in the morning.”
Liza says she was more involved in organizing and producing the wedding.
“I remember that with every vendor we spoke to, there was that moment when I said it was a wedding of two women, and it was always a kind of test of the other side’s reaction,” she says. “At the end of the day, we wanted to feel comfortable on our wedding day. God forbid there should be a photographer or designer with even a trace of homophobia, because that could ruin our important event. We looked for vendors who were gay-friendly and sensitive, who would make us feel as comfortable as possible.”
Are you thinking about expanding the family?
“Of course,” Liza says. “Even before the wedding, we started looking into the process of starting a family. We began the initial process, doing tests, checking genetic carrier status, understanding what happens with sperm donation in Israel or abroad.”
“Liza is the more responsible one between us, so she does all the tests and inquiries,” Avi says. “People think it’s something simple,” Liza adds, “but it’s pretty complicated.”
“If you interview us again next year,” Avi says, “we’ll probably already have something to announce.”
Liza Rotman, formerly Buzhansky, plays libero in Israel’s top volleyball league. She played last season for Maccabi Ra’anana, previously spent two seasons with Maccabi Tel Aviv and will play next season for M.S. Ramat Aviv. Her resume also includes five years with Israel’s national team, three of them with the senior squad. Alongside her sports career, she is completing a master’s degree in medical psychology this month.
Avi Rotman, a former El Al flight attendant, now works as a human resources manager at a gaming-tech company. She is also completing a master’s degree in law this year.
What background do each of you come from?
“I grew up in Ashdod in an Ashkenazi family,” Avi says. “My mother was a German tourist who met my father here on some summer vacation, and he kind of made it a condition that she convert so they could get married. They lived in Be’er Sheva, moved to Ashdod, with three daughters. I’m the middle one, the sandwich child. My father died of an illness when I was 10, so I basically grew up with my mother and sisters. There was female power in my home from a young age.”
Liza says both her parents immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union.
“I was born and raised in Herzliya, and then we moved and I lived in Ariel for six years,” she says. “But at 14, I already left home and moved to the Wingate Institute boarding school. I lived there and trained there until I was 19, which was around the time I came out. Thanks to volleyball, I received a full college scholarship in the United States and lived in Texas for three years. When I came back to Israel, I moved to Tel Aviv. It’s a good thing I came back, because then I met Avi.”
What can you tell us about coming out?
“I come from a Soviet family, so I was really afraid to tell them,” Liza says. “The first person I told was my mother. I told her after I came back from a trip to South America with a girlfriend and was hospitalized for some treatment, and she came to visit me. We sat in the hallway, and I was crying and crying, trying and failing to tell her. She kept asking what happened, and then she asked me, ‘Are you pregnant?’ I answered, ‘No, I’m not pregnant, exactly the opposite,’ and told her that the friend I had just returned from the trip with was not just my friend, she was my partner.”
How did she react?
“I was sure she would take it hard, dramatically, and she really was a little cold, but she said, ‘It’s natural,’” Liza says. “I asked her if she wasn’t supposed to throw me out of the house now, and she answered, ‘But you don’t live at home anymore.’”
Liza says her mother, who has a doctorate in chemistry, responded in a way that stayed with her.
“I remember she told me during that conversation that in nature, both sexes are attracted to both sexes,” Liza says. “I told my father only more than a year later. My knees were really shaking in front of him because he’s a tough Russian man. I was scared.”
How did he respond?
“He really did put his head in his hands and say, ‘Oh no, my daughter is a lesbian,’” Liza recalls. “But a few minutes later, he said everything was fine, hugged me and said, ‘We love you as you are.’ Overall, my parents accepted it, even though they didn’t come to Pride parades and they didn’t wave flags. This year, for the first time, my mother asked to come with us, and she’ll join us at the parade in Tel Aviv. She already bought an outfit and sent us a picture of what she’ll wear.”
“I was kind of outed,” Avi says.
What does that mean?
“My mother and sister found out I was in a relationship with a woman,” she says. “When I found out that they knew, I ran away from home. My mother looked for me, worried, asked me to come home and promised everything would be all right. When I came back, we didn’t talk about it at all for several years.”
Then, when Avi’s mother celebrated her 60th birthday, Avi came with her then-girlfriend.
“My mother suddenly took her by the hand and went with her, one by one, to every couple of friends who had been invited to the event, and introduced her to them,” Avi says. “She told everyone, ‘This is my daughter’s partner.’ My ex didn’t really understand what was happening. When she introduced my partner to her friends, that was the first time I felt she was not ashamed of my relationship, that she was proud of it, proud of me.”
Have you experienced harassment or discrimination because of your sexual orientation?
“Less discrimination and bullying, more sexual harassment, mainly from men,” Avi says. “We are a feminine blonde couple, probably a fantasy object for some men. The homophobia we encounter is men who have known me for less than an hour, whether at work, colleagues or vendors, very quickly allow themselves to ask how it works, to question me about what happens between us in the bedroom, and sometimes, even though no one asked them, also say that I probably just haven’t met the right guy yet.”
Ahead of Pride, Liza and Avi were photographed for Tel Aviv Municipality’s “Vote with your feet” campaign, which calls on people to leave their homes and come to the parade to show presence and support for the LGBT community.
The 28th Tel Aviv-Jaffa Pride Parade takes place today (Friday), June 12, at 1 p.m., with trucks and buses accompanying the march from the gathering point on Sheleg Street, near Gordon Beach and the Lahat Promenade, to the main Pride stage at Charles Clore Park.