Just to mix things up a little: A call for subs for an anthology that has nothing to do with either the election race or Israel! Rather, Orthodykes. I don’t know any more than what’s below, so please follow submission guidelines or pass along to potentially interested parties…..
Call for Submissions:
KEEP YOUR WIVES AWAY FROM THEM:
AN ANTHOLOGY OF WRITINGS BY AND ABOUT ORTHODYKES
Deadline: July 31, 2008
Jewish women who are bisexual, transgender, lesbian or queer-identified live lives that can often be fraught with discord. But they have also mined the complexities and contradictions that come with these identities as sources for spiritual change, ritual innovation and community building. Keep Your Wives Away From Them is an anthology of professional scholarly essays and personal journalistic pieces that will document the stories of those who have lived in the meeting-ground of Judaism and queer desire. This anthology, in calling attention to an otherwise hidden or silent population of women, will unravel the puzzle of a seemingly impossible identity. It will also document the rich innovations in Jewish and queer life in the communities of Jewish LBTQ women and female born genderqueer individuals that have developed in around the world over the past 25 years.
In February, a group of religious gay and lesbian Jews calling themselves HOD ( äåîåàéí ãúééí ), set up a website. According to ynet, the group wanted to set up the website to reach out to their community and show that they exist and that they do not wish to flout halakha. Yneted reported:
Recognition and acceptance are therefore foremost on the site operators’ agenda, “We want to embrace both identities, gay and religious,” explained Itay, noting that “we (religious gays) can be found everywhere in the religious world, and simply want to eliminate the stigma, disgrace and sometimes outright violence that has been leveled against us within the religious community.”
“We are your beloved sons,” site operators made an impassioned plea to the religious community, its rabbis and public leaders, also quoting Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook who stated that he would “rather transgress with reckless love to fellow Jews than unwarranted hatred.”
Just about a week later, because of the huge response to the new site, the organizers of the site
sent out a letter to Orthodox community leaders in which the leader of HOD asked their community to recognize them as “a living, viable part of its rank and file.”
The letter was sent to rabbis, religious Knesset members, mayors, community leaders, and organization heads, including Conversion Authority head Rabbi Haim Druckman and Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, and notes that it is only ignorance and lack of awareness that lead to the senseless hatred against homosexuals within the Orthodox community.
Now, the faces behind HOD have met: Last week, 70 people met for the first face to face meeting of HOD. It was attended by representatives from all over (including non-hareidi movement groups, such as Chavruta – the religious section of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance).
The purpose of the meeting was to “receiv[e] legitimization to operate on the religious homosexuals’ behalf and lead the campaign aimed at gaining the religious leaders’ support” and to review a final version of the letter originally sent out in February. It had been amended according to recommendations of various rabbis, professionals and group members. Now they will ask for signatories in the religious community.
We’re all (by now) familiar with the story of the Orange on the seder plate. Not only the famous midrash (note I am not calling it fact) of Susannah Heschel and the man who claimed women should not be Jewish leaders, but also the misty origins of said story in the a woman telling lesbians that female homosexuality is a minor sin, like putting bread on the seder plate. Nevermind why the relentless deconstruction of this midrash is an example of why modern midrash sucks (I’ll talk about that some other time).
Instead, take a look at a post by Mel of Stirrup Queens and Sperm Count Jesters. Normally her blog is about infertility and its side issues from the perspective of an observant Jew. In this post, she writes about Thomas Beatie, the pregnant man and how putting an apple on the seder plate, for her, revived the original facts of the orange midrash…
representing reproductive rights for all people because truthfully, just as the changed story of Heschel’s speech has a man shouting about women belonging on the bimah as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate, empty symbolic gestures do not have a space at my table. It is apples and oranges; I am taking back the fruit. If I believe in reproductive rights for myself–and believe me, I want my reproductive rights well-covered–I need to believe in reproductive rights for all who act out of love or my shouting for myself becomes merely symbolic, self-serving, meaningless.
Mother Jones, in August 2006, ran a survey of fertility clinic directors. Only 59% believed everyone has a right to a child. 48% said they would likely turn away a gay couple seeking a surrogate. 20% would turn away a single woman. 17% would turn away a lesbian couple. If you want reproductive rights for yourself–and I’m fairly certain that no fertility clinic director would wish to be told that they cannot or must have a child–we should be concerned about others. Because I’m not just talking about those experiencing infertility who need to utilize assisted conception when I speak about reproductive rights–every single person on this earth should be in control of whether or not they reproduce or parent. Put an apple on the seder plate for that.
Some stories have been floating around the media with varying levels of accuracy, but Jewschool has obtained the full (or fuller) story from reliable sources. The real story here isn’t about gay and lesbian rabbis in the Conservative movement (that was last year’s story); it’s about the lengths to which people and institutions will go out of fear, demonizing their own students and losing all perspective.
The story begins a year ago this week, when the Jewish Theological Seminary announced that it would begin admitting openly gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools. (The American Jewish University, formerly the University of Judaism, is now also admitting gay and lesbian students.) One year later, to mark the anniversary, JTS held a program on Wednesday called Hazak Hazak V’nithazek: Celebrating Strength Through Inclusion, a full day of study, conversation, and celebration.
Several JTS students studying this year at Machon Schechter (the Conservative rabbinical school in Jerusalem where American Conservative rabbinical students are required to spend a year) wanted to participate in the celebration going on in New York in some way, and since they couldn’t attend physically, they organized a small parallel event in Israel. According to email invitations sent to the Conservative Yeshiva and other rabbinical students in Jerusalem, the students invited Yonatan Gher, former Director of Communications for the Masorti (Israeli Conservative) movement, incoming director of the Jerusalem Open House, and a member of Masorti congregations his whole life (and recently profiled in the New York Times because he and his partner are having a child via a surrogate mother in India), to speak over lunch about his personal experiences as a member of a GLBT family in the Masorti movement. More »
I was going to post about the earthquakin’ queers, but Rooftopper Rav beat me to it. What I would like to point out, however, is the juxtaposition of two articles currently on the Haaretz home page:
Shas MK Shlomo Benizri blamed gays Wednesday for the earthquakes that have shaken the region in recent months, telling a Knesset plenum debate on local authorities’ earthquake preparedness that government action on homosexuality would do much to prevent the tremors.
Benizri said the government should not make do with reinforcing buildings, but should instead pass less legislation that encourages homosexuality and other “perversions like adoptions by lesbian couples.”
The ultra-Orthodox party MK invoked passages from the Talmud and the Gemarrah to support his claims.
Homosexuals caused Israel’s last earthquake, Shas MK Shlomo Benizri said Wednesday.
During a special Knesset session on earthquakes, Benizri said he proposed that the Knesset “find a way to prevent mishkav zachar [sexual relations between men], and thus save [us] a lot of earthquakes.”
MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor) responded to Benizri’s statements by saying that MK Nissim Ze’ev should be banned from the Shas faction because of his influence on his party members.
Last week, Ze’ev told faction members that “homosexuals were poisoning society,” and that “homolesbianism legitimized the state of Israel’s ’self destruction.’”
At least Benizri seems to hate pluralistically. A bunch of years ago he seems to have made the news for complaining about foreign workers and saying, “”I just don’t understand why a restaurant needs a slant-eye to serve me my meal.” In March 2006 Benizri was charged by the State Prosecutor’s Office with accepting bribes worth millions of shekels and breaching the public trust.
Following up to an earlier post, gays and lesbians in Israel now have full adoption rights. Israel’s Attorney General Meni Mazuz has instructed the Israeli government agency responsible for child adoption that same-sex couples are now eligible to be recognized as parents. Gay couples will also be entitled to adopt children abroad and register as the child’s parents in Israel. This follows December’s decision.
Mazuz added that his directive established the principle of the legal right for homosexual couples to adopt, but that each request by a couple had to be investigated on its own merits. However, he emphasized that the authorities could not reject an adoption request by a homosexual couple solely on the grounds that having two parents of the same sex was by definition bad for the child.
“In accordance with the High Court ruling,” Mazuz wrote, “‘the well-being of the adopted child’ is a complex principle that includes many aspects, and one may not say a priori that because the couple is same-sex, it will be bad for the child to be adopted by it. Therefore, the question of the identity of the couple is only one of the relevant considerations that must be taken into account together with all the other relevant circumstances and considerations.” [source.]
What I found the most interesting was the divide between which newspapers quote the attorney general, maybe the Welfare and Social Services minister as well, and left it as a simple “this is the ruling, welcome to modernity, Israel” article. And then the newspapers that alloted more space to the “queers can’t raise kids properly” types than to the legal decision itself. I often feel that divisive issues are all the more so because the media makes them that way. Sure, folks are entitled to believe that gay parents can’t raise a child properly, even though there isn’t any scientific research to back it up. (Keyword: scientific. Papers coming out of the Family Research Council do not count.) And, yes, that can and does lead to lively and spirited debate. But when does reporting on conflict cross the line from journalism to creating divisive issues (so that follow up articles can be written, so that more papers can be sold), to printing libel and hatred? Just because a a former deputy minister of Welfare and Social Services believes that a child cannot be properly raised without both a mother and a father, and that society will crumble without solid, “normative families,” does that mean it should be featured prominently in an article? He no longer works there! He no longer has a say in the adoption process of Israel! Just because a reporter knows they can turn to Shas for a good anti-LGBT equal rights sound byte, does that mean they should? Worse, if you go to the JPost archives and try to read the (free) article abstract, it implies that Mazuz said the heterosexist family stuff. Debate is healthy, but this issue is closed. The courts ruled; and the attorney general did as well, following a discussion in the knesset. Let’s move forwards, shall we?
Now that a child can be “ben/bat zug” (”son/daughter of partner”) on their birth certificate, instead of the previously available “ben/bat,” and with the knesset agreeing with the courts that the term “partner” in the Adoption Law (over which the court case was initially fought) means “partner of any gender, in a heterosexual or homosexual relationship,” how much longer until gays and lesbians can get married in Israel? (Well, in Tel Aviv anyway - let’s allow for some baby steps here.)
Thesearticles from the New York Jewish Week and the Jewish Daily Forward do a wonderful job telling us what happened. The usual suspects are all there: a faith-based organization, a homosexual scandal, a Facebook protest group.
What it doesn’t properly convey is, how did we get here? So a gay alumnus was barred by his yeshivah high school’s administration from attending his 10-year reunion with his same-sex partner — so what?
The Orthodox don’t like the gays. Isn’t that all we need to know?
Not really.
I’m trying to collect my thoughts about high school, about openness, about sexuality and spirituality and about the history of the Yeshivah of Flatbush, at one time a standard-bearer of Modern Orthodoxy in America. But I keep coming back to the prophet Yeshayah.
In chapter 55, towards the start of the Haftara reading for public fast days, Yeshayah haNavi speaks in God’s name: “ëÌÄé ëÌÇàÂùÑÆø éÅøÅã äÇâÌÆùÑÆí åÀäÇùÌÑÆìÆâ îÄï-äÇùÌÑÈîÇéÄí, åÀùÑÈîÌÈä ìÉà éÈùÑåÌá–ëÌÄé àÄí-äÄøÀåÈä àÆú-äÈàÈøÆõ, åÀäåÉìÄéãÈäÌ åÀäÄöÀîÄéçÈäÌ; åÀðÈúÇï æÆøÇò ìÇæÌÉøÅòÇ, åÀìÆçÆí ìÈàÉëÅì. ëÌÅï éÄäÀéÆä ãÀáÈøÄé àÂùÑÆø éÅöÅà îÄôÌÄé, ìÉà-éÈùÑåÌá àÅìÇé øÅé÷Èí: ëÌÄé àÄí-òÈùÒÈä àÆú-àÂùÑÆø çÈôÇöÀúÌÄé, åÀäÄöÀìÄéçÇ àÂùÑÆø ùÑÀìÇçÀúÌÄéå.” ( Just as the rains and the snows fall from the sky and do not return without saturating the earth that it may sprout and blossom, giving seeds to the sower and bread to the diner: so will these words exiting my mouth not return to me empty, but they will complete their mission and accomplish my will .)
Therein lies the difference between us and God. God, it is traditionally asserted, knows the inner thoughts of every living thing, and sees the future to its farthest conclusion. We rarely know the end results of any of our actions.
Flatbush was a great place for me. I grew up in Brooklyn in a Modern Orthodox family. I was a smart kid with a vivid imagination and a bit of a passive-aggressive streak. I believed in fairness, in the Judaism I was taught, and that God was truly good and was looking out for all of us.
On Thursday night we went to see the Hebrew version of Avenue Q in Tel Aviv.
feygele has posted some thoughts. Having seen the original version in New York, we had been wondering how they would translate the cultural references — how many Israelis have heard of Gary Coleman? And the answer is that they replaced American cultural references that Israelis wouldn’t get with Israeli cultural references that we (as North American expats) didn’t get. Instead of Gary Coleman (played by a woman in the New York production), Avenue Q’s va’ad habayit [sic] was headed up by Michal Yannai, played by herself in a comeback role. As best we can tell, Michal Yannai is the Israeli equivalent of Gary Coleman: a former child TV star with a checkered history. The Israeli version of Avenue Q is still in New York (the sign on the front says “FOR RENT” in English, and the Empire State Building is still the Empire State Building), and the (American) characters have inexplicably heard of Michal Yannai, who is pursuing acting roles in the US, until the end when she decides to go back to Israel. The puppet characters are all the same as in the American version (including Katie-fletzet and Trekkie-fletzet, based on Oogie-fletzet, the Israeli version of Cookie Monster), but Christmas Eve (a Japanese character who speaks Engrish) has been replaced by Latina (that’s her name). We hypothesized that this is because a stereotyped Asian character may have hit a nerve for Israeli audiences, because of all the current issues with Thai and Filipino guest workers in Israel. In several instances when Latina sings solos, the music suddenly turns into salsa-style. Latina and Trekkie Monster both speak in ungrammatical Hebrew, botching gender agreement, and using infinitives instead of conjugated verbs (”àðé ìòùåú”, etc.)
The songs, of course, have all been translated into Hebrew. “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?” has become “úåàø øàùåï, æä ðçîã… áùáéì àîà” (”A bachelor’s degree, that’s nice … for Mom”). Instead of reading a book about Broadway musicals of the 1940s, Rod is reading a book about Eurovision, and the ensuing song, “If You Were Gay”, may contain the best line of the show: “àí äìá áçø / áîùëá æëø”. Lines like this, permeated with biblical and rabbinic references that have become part of the everyday language, convinced me that the Israeli Avenue Q is the true culmination of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s achievement. I mean, the translation of “The Internet is for porn / The Internet is for porn” was “äàéðèøðè æä ôùåè / âï òãï ùì àåððåú”, which contains not one but two references to Sefer Bereishit.
We also cracked up at the wedding scene, which the Israeli audience didn’t seem to notice anything odd about. I don’t remember the ritual details of the American version, but this one was a strange mix of American and Jewish wedding customs. The male humans and puppets were all wearing white kippot, and Brian and Latina entered the chuppah to the tune of “Here Comes the Bride”. Michal Yannai officiated, wearing a black hat, jacket, and tie. She pronounced them husband and wife, Latina broke the glass, and everyone shouted “Mazal tov!”. As they left to go check out the buffet, Yannai said “Is it kosher?” and Latina said “No. Sorry.”
“I Wish I Could Go Back to College” became “úðå ìé ìçæåø ìáéú-ñôø” (”Let me go back to school”). As I understand it, áéú-ñôø generally refers to elementary and secondary school, not to college/university. We’re guessing that this change was necessary for the Israeli version because Israelis don’t think of university as an idyllic return to the womb — it’s something they do after the army, when they’re already (relatively) independent adults.
Oh, and the untranslatable “one nightstand” gag was left out entirely.
If you’re in Israel, go see it now! It’s playing on Sunday night at Beit Lessin, and then moving to the Jerusalem Theater for performances on January 17 and 19.
Hillel recently released a guide for including LGBTQ students in its campus activities. The guide, downloadable as a pdf, and the press release are available in full here.
At 186-pages, it’s lengthy and fairly comprehensive, touching on topics from the history of the American LGBTQ movements, to resources for coming out, to queer and Jewish content for programming. The guide also includes a glossary of commonly used queer/LGBTQ-related terms.
My concern, however, is that the length will actually be a barrier. Those Hillel staff who aren’t interested in stepping outside the box, or making an effort to include these students in their programming, will be quick to dismiss a document of this length. (I mean, heck, it took me over two weeks since I saw the press release to read it - and I’m interested!) Maybe I’m just jaded by incredibly negative Hillel experiences, but I think this guide is largely “preaching to the choir.”
“Hillel is opening the doors for all Jewish students, of all sexual orientations and gender identities,” says Hillel President Wayne L. Firestone. “The resource guide provides Hillel directors with practical recommendations for welcoming this important population into our Hillels.”
To take off the cynical hat, I hope that Hillel staff are given more than just this guide - that they’re provided with additional resources for understanding what they read, having their questions answered, and ensuring that they do, in fact, make their local Hillel an open and welcoming place for LGBTQ students.
Since 1992, Israel has slowly been examining the legal status of, and equal rights of, homosexuals (specifically, gays and lesbians), starting with legislation prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. By comparison, depending on the definition of “sexual orientation” and employment in the public versus private sectors, only 20-30 US states have legislations prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexuality. In Canada, LGBT folks have been protected implicitly since the 1985 introduction of section 15 of the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms; the court explicitly noted the inclusion of sexual orientation in 1995 and added the language to the federal charter in 1996.
The main benchmarks for gay and lesbian rights in Israel include:
1992: legislation prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (this included exemptions for religious organizations);
1993: homosexuals can openly serve in the army;
1994: same-sex couples can register for common law marriage;
1994-2001: equal rights extended to same-sex spouses, including spousal benefits, survivor benefits, pension rights, and guardianship of spouse’s children;
2005: gays and lesbians can legally adopt each other’s children (more below);
2006: Israel recognizes same-sex marriage performed abroad (court case focused on gay couple married in Canada; actual registration of their marriage in Israel happened in early 2007).
Which brings us to today. The Israeli government is considering broadening adoption rights for lesbian and gay couples. (Or, as Haaretz has termed it, “single-sex couples.”)
Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog is launching policy that would allow single-sex families to adopt children in Israel who bear no biological connection to them. [Read more.]
It is legal in Israel for gays and lesbians to adopt the biological children of their partners. But, with the exception of one case in 2005, it has not been possible for a couple to adopt a baby/child whom they are not biologically related to.
Back in September, I wrote about the rampant homophobic graffiti in Jerusalem, and posted some photographic evidence.
I’ve decided that it’s time for an update. This is best done, again, by sharing photographs snapped around town. Actually, these are all taken in a four block stretch of a major street that runs from my neighbourhood towards the city centre. Many of these have gone back and forth a few rounds (the original homophobic slur, a correction, reiterating the homophobia, a further correction…). In order to demonstrate that, I added notes to the photos on flickr, so I highly recommend you check them out individually there.
I like the alterations to the homophobia, and the different styles people are using to change the message. (Though, I admit that I don’t quite understand the squaring of the “h”.)
I’d like to thank the others who are helping with this project. I have my sharpie in hand every day, and there’s still more to do…
Rabbi Yehuda Levin issued the following statement:
Chanukah is not a winter solstice holiday, nor a present exchanging Kwanza lite. The Macabees revolted against the Syrian-Greeks only when they tried to squelch Jewish rituals dealing with modesty, holiness and the service of G-d. It was when the allies of the Syrian-Greeks, upper class socially liberal Jews, known as Hellenists, embraced the attempted abolition of ritual circumcision, Sabbath, and the Holidays and encouraged young Jews to cavort nude in the gymnasiums they built (Gymnos, the Greek word for nude) that the loyal religious Jews defied their “enlightened”, “progressive”, “socially liberal” (read libertine) reprobate brethren and sacrificed their lives to prevent the “Hell”enization of Jewish Holiness. Anyone who is familiar with ancient Greek culture knows about the centrality of homosexuality in their daily lives. It is obvious that what followed the nudity in the gymnasium and the emphasis on the body, was rampant institutionalized homosexuality, which religious Jews have associated with Amalek’s attack on the ancient Jews during their desert sojourn (as stated in the Torah/Bible).
The faithful Jews, willingly martyred themselves to defeat the debauchery of that time both heterosexual and homosexual. Thus Chanukah represents the first ever defeat of a world power’s homosexual agenda!
Calling all trans, bisexual, lesbian, gay, intersex, queer, questioning, dyke, fag, genderqeeer, heteroflexible, homoflexible, boi, girrl, pansexual, _____ (fill in your own) Jewish students!
Registration for the National Union of Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex, Students 2008 conference is open!
Where: New York City!
When: Friday February 8th- Sunday February 10th 2008
What: A weekend leadership to support and empower LGBTQQI Jewish
students organized by Jewish LBTQQI students!
Who: Anyone who self-identifies as Jewish and LGBTQQI (and more!)
Hosts: Columbia/Barnard Hillel’s Gayava will host NUJLS 2008 at
Columbia University and her affiliate campuses: Barnard College and
The Jewish Theological Seminary.
To register for the conference or learn more go to:
http://www.nujlsonline.org/conference.php!
The registration fee will be announced shortly, but will be under $80. This amount includes food, housing, workshops, etc. (Everything but travel). Travel and registration subsides are available (to start the process, request them during registration).
Also, we invite you to lead a workshop or service or ask your local shul/Temple/Synagogue to sponsor.
If you have any questions email me (Vinny) at: info AT nujlsonline.org.
One year ago today, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) began its final deliberations on whether or not to ordain openly gay and lesbian rabbis. On December 6 the CJLS approved three teshuvot (rabbinic responsa): the Dorff, Nevins, Reisner teshuvah (which passed by a majority of 13 votes and permitted gay ordination), the Roth teshuvah (which also passed by a majority of 13 votes and prohibited ordination), and the Levy teshuvah (which was passed by 6 votes and was not only anti-ordination in its underlying attitude but was also considered offensive by many for its references– among other things– to the potential of reparative therapy.) Several months later, then JTS Chancellor-elect Arnie Eisen declared that the JTSrabbinical and cantorial schools would now accept openly gay and lesbian rabbis.
In reflecting back on the turmoil of that time, I came across a statement made by Rabbi Joel Roth during discussions on the first day of the CJLS meeting. I had forgotten all about it, but it’s particularly interesting in light of the fact that a pro-ordination teshuvah actually received a majority of votes. Did he truly mean what he said? Was it just a political strategy to get the papers off the table? How would he react now to his words? To wit:
Rabbi Roth began by (in his own words) “begging” the law committee to move the discussion out of the realm of whether or not the papers under consideration were takanot. He claimed that there was a different consideration that was “more important to me.” Numbers of votes, he said, were what mattered. “Takanot or not, what matters is whether the decisions have enough support to validate them in any but the most formalistic of ways… To [change halachah] on the basis of so small a number of votes would do a disservice to the halakhic process, the decisions themselves, the institutions, and the Conservative Movement.” Rabbi Roth acknowledged that change was coming eventually anyway, but said “It won’t help the view of the permissive papers to be validated by so few votes…. Their legitimacy will be impugned by the paucity of the number of those who vote in favor.” Rabbi Roth consequently made several appeals to the authors of the “permissive papers” (”I plead, implore, beseech the authors…”) to withdraw their papers if they believed that– as he strongly suggested they would– they would receive a very small minority of votes.
Of course Rabbi Joel Roth cares deeply about the halachic issues as he sees them and participated in the arguments on technical/halachic grounds as well. But I still find his emphasis and his words (which were written down with general permission at the CJLS meeting) intensely surprising. It also goes without saying that I’m thrilled he was wrong.
I have never taken for granted the fact that I was raised in Canada, in the big cities, to liberal parents. Some of my earliest memories involve one of m parents’ gay friends who helped my nanny take care of me when my parents were on vacation in Europe: he picked me up, on a weekend morning, and took me to my pottery lessons. After my class, before returning me to my home, he bought me ice cream. This was a huge deal: it was not yet noon, and I had not yet had lunch. In my family, dessert was for special occasions, and we certainly weren’t allowed sweets before lunch! At the ripe old age of 4, I didn’t know what “gay” meant, but I knew that adults used that word when referring to this family friend and his housemates (I later clued in that they were two gay couples sharing a house). So in my young mind, I equated “gay” with “sweet before lunch” which meant “cool.” A formative experience, to be sure. I went on to attend both elementary school and high school, in different cities, with queer teachers of different genders, and at least twice had students in my class whose gender – to this day – remains unknown. All of this was fully accepted, encouraged, and supported. It wasn’t a big deal when I came out; the first pride parade I marched in was captured on film by my math teacher and her partner, who cheered as I walked by with an LGBTQ youth group.
Which isn’t to say that my life has been untouched by homophobia. I was once attacked by a group of guys, who shouted homophobic slurs as they took their swings and kicks. I lived in a small town where homophobia was as “natural” as drinking beer. Once while sucking a popsicle in my car, another driver shouted “faggot” at he passed me by (okay, that one might have been called for!).
But I’ve written those off as isolated incidents that were few and far between. I was able to balance them with the activism and volunteer work I was doing to educate my communities on issues relating to homophobia, heterosexism, heterocentrism, transphobia, and more. Work I’ve been doing for more than half my life.
Living in Jerusalem, however, I’m having a hard time compartmentalizing, pushing down, the rampant homophobia. It started my first day in Jerusalem, walking from Rehavia to Mahane Yehuda. Scribbled on a paper recycling bin was “homo = ill,” “homo = filthy,” and “homo = dog.” I was shocked. In a city where destruction (or amelioration) of public property, through graffiti and stencil art, for political statement or “just” art, was the norm, I couldn’t believe that no one had challenged this message. As I continued my exploration of the city, I found that this message was repeated on paper recycling bins, electricity boxes, telephone poles, walls, gas metre boxes, and other public places, not just in Rehavia, but in Baka, Nachlot, Katamon, Germany Colony, city centre and Ben Yehuda, and more. I was able to determine that the hatred was all being written by the same hand.
I quickly devised a plan, supported by friends, to correct the graffiti. We started carrying permanent markers with us and changing the message from “homo = ill” to “homophobia = ill.” But the more we changed, the more we had to change. On streets where I had corrected every then-marked-up spot, a second walk a few days later would reveal new, bolder, places where the hatred was being displayed. And tonight I noticed that some of my corrections had been amended. “Homo very dangerous for children.”
I feel like I’m loosing this fight. I could keep writing messages back, correcting what has now been written to counter my anti-homophobia corrections, but it’s becoming overwhelming. This individual clearly has a lot of time on his/her hands, and I almost feel like I’m being watched or followed as I walk around making these corrections.
If you’re in Jerusalem, I implore you to take a sharpie in hand and correct them as you see them (or just cross them out). It’s exhausting living in a city where messages of hate are scribbled everywhere I look, and even more exhausting feeling like no difference is being made. If things don’t turn around soon, I think I’ll be taking this story to the press.
If you cared about Hineini, the documentary about Shulamit Izen and her coming out process at the New Jewish High School in Boston, you’ll want to get on board with helping reach even more people. Thursday night, August 30, will be a great time to get out and support the work that Keshet is doing to make Jewish educational institutions and communal organizations safe spaces for LGBT Jews. Grand old Reform synagogue Ohabei Shalom at 1187 Beacon St in Brookline (you’ll feel the 50s in the stained glass, although the dome roof kind of reminds me of a mosque!) is hosting Keshet’s Benefit Folk Concert featuring P.J. Shapiro, Mark Lipman, and Rebecca Katz. Tickets range from $15-$25. Chip in for equality, there’s so much work to be done to make our Jewish spaces ones in which all Jews feel included and respected. Concert starts at 6:30pm, 617-524-9227 for questions.
The article does a good job of discussing why straight, religious Jews might be at the parade, and throws around a few of my juicy quotes, though i wish it would have mentioned that I am going to Orthodox rabbinic school. However, it fails to really delve into the unique religious nature of hte parade or of the pride movement in general in Jerusalem.
It would have been nice to mention that the Jerusalem Open House that organized the parade was co-founded by Rabbi Steve Greenberg, and that their most regular event is a monthly kabballat shabbat and potluck dinner. Another interesting story line could have been Bat Kol, the national organization for religious lesbians. This group, was perhaps the most moving and motivated at the parade. They marched as a group, wearing long skirts, and modest white blouses, while singing traditional chassidic tunes.
For all of the protests and the threats that came out of the chareidi community, the parade was a success for the religious Jewish community. There were kippot everywhere, worn by representatives of all religious denominations. At one point, Rachel Joseph Marrah, Anne Lewis, and myself were marching together. The three of us come from very different backgrounds, but we have one connection - we will all be starting rabbinical school next year, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox respectively. There could be a pride parade anywhere, but perhaps a Jewish parade could only happen in Jerusalem.
