Former Shin Bet Employee Urges Staff Not to Quit After Pride Event Cancellation

Following a report by journalist Yaron Avraham on Channel 12’s main news broadcast that the Shin Bet had decided to cancel Pride events, Moran Zer Katzenstein, a former Shin Bet employee and now a candidate in The Democrats’ primary, published an open and emotional letter to the agency’s workers.

She wrote that she was speaking “with great pain” as someone who had worked inside the organization and still loved it. Katzenstein said that when she served there, the Shin Bet was “a security organization, sharp, state-minded, but also open, liberal and humane,” with secular and religious staff, women and men, and people from all parts of Israeli society. She said that diversity was a strength, not a weakness.

Katzenstein sharply criticized the leadership’s decision, saying that canceling events, removing symbols, silencing identities and cutting budgets was not a managerial choice but “an evil spirit.” She added that it was “darkness entering an organization that is supposed to protect Israeli democracy, not fear it.”

She ended by urging current employees not to leave or give up despite the distress. “Please do not leave. Do not despair. Do not let this darkness defeat you,” she wrote. “The real Shin Bet is you,” she said, praising the workers’ integrity, professionalism and courage. “Dark days do not last forever. Light will come, not very long from now,” she concluded, telling them to hold on because “the state needs you, and the Shin Bet needs you” to remember what it truly is.