I am writing to you from Jerusalem, where I live. My real name is  xxx, but I am well known as “Jony Jerusalem” in all my AIDS related public endeavors and website appearances. I have been an HIV carrier for the past five and a half years.

Five and a half years ago I had no idea I had HIV; I was suffering, getting ill, spending time hospitalized at the Hadassa Hospital in Jerusalem, thinking it was the end of my life. Only after endless medical tests while hanging between life and death at the ICU did we find out I was HIV positive. At the time, there was not one person in the hospital staff who believed they would see me standing again on my own two feet, not one medical staff member who believed I would leave the hospital alive, and yet once the virus was found in my blood, the doctors and I fought hard until twenty three days later I left the hospital, indeed, on my own two feet and started receiving Aids appropriate treatment.

My family accepted my status as a carrier without reproach, and moreover – I have been given full admirable support by my family, as opposed to many of my friends, who were rejected and ostracized by their families, and even thrown out of home.

Once out of the hospital, I searched for information on AIDS on the internet. All I could find was articles and websites basically telling me that AIDS kills. I turned off the computer in dismay and sunk into a world of anxiety and depression. But I was not alone. I have the best of social workers at the hospital, Ms Estelle Rubinstein, to whom I owe the understanding that AIDS does not mean a death penalty. Once she showed me one can live many years as a carrier living a full life, I vowed to build a website in Hebrew for others in my situation, so they can have a current, accurate and dependable source of information.   Seven months later my website  www.hiv.co.il  was on, followed by a website in Arabic, the second official language of Israel, and soon followed by more pages in Russian and Spanish too.  It has since become a major international site, with an average of 40000 entry's a day and over a 1.2 visits a year, with people browsing it from over 200 countries across the world, including remote islands! The website, no doubt, has provided answers, light and hope to many who need it.

The song you read here and that I hope you will soon listen to, has a history of its own. It is titled “The Aids song, The Stigma song”. There is nothing I want more fiercely than to fight against and shatter the AIDS social stigma. Hence, after thinking about the best way to do it, I wrote the lyrics to the Aids  Song, which describes how we are all equal human beings, all looking for a love-showing hug.