Brother of Israeli hostage visits D.C.
Gili Roman and his sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, have always been close. “We are best friends,” Roman told the Washington Blade on Monday during an interview in D.C. “We understood each other without words, with words.
We always stand for each other.” Roman was 26 when he came out as gay to his parents. He told his sister several months later when they were on vacation in Vietnam.
Roman said she was “very angry at me that I came out to our parents before I told her.” “She said, ‘I don’t believe you told me after our parents,'” recalled Roman. “With my parents it wasn’t easy, but with her it was super easy and she was super excited for me because she wanted me to have this open and happy life.” Roman spoke with the Blade less than a month after Hamas militants kidnapped his sister.
Roman-Gat and her husband, Alon Gat, lived in Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, for four years.
