Modeling Respect on Lag B’Omer
According to Jewish Law it is the practice to refrain from getting married between Passover and Shavuot – until Lag B’Omer (Shulchan Aruch 493:1). It is recorded that this practice serves as a memorial for the students of Rabbi Akiva who perished during this period of time. Their deaths came to an end (or at least a break) on Lag B’Omer. But, why did the students of Rabbi Akiva die? And why would we mourn their death by refraining from getting married?
Creative Commons/Goxxy
We can start to answer these questions by looking at the Gemara (Oral Law) in Yevamot. There we learn:
Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of disciples from Gabbata to Antipatris; and all of them died at the same time because they did not treat each other with respect. The world remained desolate until Rabbi Akiva came to our Masters in the South and taught the Torah to them. These were Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yose, Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua; and it was they who revived the Torah at that time. A Tanna taught: “All of them died between Passover and Shavuot.” (Yevamot 62b) Continue reading
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A Jew. A Queer. But a Jewish Queer? Keshet Youth Shabbaton Reflection
I’ve never been one to have high expectations. I tend to take situations as they come and to be spontaneous in my decision making. That being said, I didn’t have any idea what I was in for as I stepped out of van and onto the cold snowy ground of the Isabella Friedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut this January.
Shelby, third from left, at the Keshet Shabbaton
Maybe I was subconsciously hoping the sky would be teeming with a myriad of rainbows, the clouds would part, and beautiful, teenage, gay women would fall from the sky, dancing to the hora and studying Torah.
Well, that didn’t happen. However, the weekend Keshet had in store for me and other LGBTQ Jewish youth at the second LGBTQ Jewish Teens and Allies Shabbaton was equally as magical.
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Parashat Aharei Mot and Parashat Kedoshim: You Shall Be Holy
Jews read sections of the Torah each week, and these sections, known as parshiyot, inspire endless examination year after year. Each week we will bring you regular essays examining these portions from a queer perspective, drawn from the book Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible and the Torah Queeries online collection. This week, Rabbi Steve Greenberg deciphers deeper meaning in what appear to be the Levitical prohibitions of homosexuality.
Creative Common/GeminiSpaceshipPilot
The paired Torah portions of Aharei Mot and Kedoshim (Leviticus 16:1-20:27) are, in gay Jewish terms, the “scene of the crime.” In these two portions are the two verses that are traditionally understood to excoriate gay male sex. In 1969 they were, as well, my bar mitzvah portion. At the age of 13 I had no idea that this double parasha would come to mean so much to me. By the time Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 came to have their full caustic power on my life, I was a closeted Orthodox rabbi living in Riverdale, New York, and involved in my first gay relationship. The high wire anxiety of this time led me to a showdown of sorts. I needed to make some sense of my life in light of these verses in order to continue in good faith, not only as an Orthodox rabbi, but as a committed Jew. Continue reading
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Day of Silence: Resources for the Jewish Community
One day each year, students across the country pledge to take some form of silence.
In the hallways, in the cafeteria, they silence themselves in order to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. Below are some resources to help your school, youth group, or Hebrew school class participate in this national Day of Silence.
Courtesy of GLSEN
GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, has a series of good videos on what the Day of Silence means and why it’s so important to LGBTQ teens and their allies alike. You can also find an a great assortment of resources for bringing the Day of Silence to your community.
- The Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund (the Federation for San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma counties) offers a variety of resources – including organizing tips, information on how to find or start a Gay-Straight Alliance, and suggestions for post-Day of Silence programming, that can work well in a Jewish setting.
- In this essay, a Jewish teen details the homophobia he sees in Jewish youth culture. Share this essay and discuss with your youth group or day school classroom before or after the Day of Silence.
- See how other Jewish teens have committed to ending homophobia and transphobia in their Jewish youth groups. Share the following with teens, and use them to prompt break-out discussions.
- Share this letter written about bullying by coalition of Jewish youth groups.
- Watch a BBYO president explain why creating safe space for Jewish teens is so important to him.
- Listen to a USY president talk about why personal difference is a strength and a virtue. (Be sure to watch the very end!)
- Hear from a group of BBYO teens about why their commitment to stand up for each other is such vital part of their youth group experience.
- For more general information on how to create a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at your Jewish school, and other ways to make Jewish space for teens more inclusive, check out this post for resources and ideas. And if you think it can’t be done, or need a little inspiration to take the first step:
- Read this essay by Amram Altzman how he started a GSA-type club at his Orthodox high school.
- Watch Keshet’s documentary film, Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School, about the formation about the first Gay-Straight Alliance at a Jewish high school.
- Read this article that explores the growing popularity of Gay-Straight Alliances at Jewish schools.
Note: The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author. All comments on MyJewishLearning are moderated. Any comment that is offensive or inappropriate will be removed. Privacy Policy
It’s the Purity, Stupid: Reading Leviticus in Context
Jews read sections of the Torah each week, and these sections, known as parshiyot, inspire endless examination year after year. Each week we will bring you regular essays examining these portions from a queer perspective, drawn from the book Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible and the Torah Queeries online collection. This week, Jay Michaelson looks at the Levitical prohibitions around purity – including the ones related to homosexuality – and finds that ethics and morality have nothing to do with them.
Creative Common/sea turtle
For gay and lesbian Jews, parshat Acharei Mot contains some of the most infamous passages of the Torah, but the preceding two, Tazria and Metzora (usually read together as a “double portion”) contain some of the most obscure. In these portions, we learn about the laws of leprosy (actually tzaraat, a skin disease similar to it but different in various ways), seminal emissions, and menstruation; here we are told the detailed method of sin-offerings and wave-offerings, and the methods of purity and contamination. Few people spend much time poring over the vivid anatomical and biological details of Tazria-Metzora. And yet, how can we understand the meaning of the Levitical sexual prohibitions without a sense of their immediate context?
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Tachlis of Inclusion: Congregation Beth Shalom of Seattle
Creating inclusive Jewish spaces is a great goal — but how do you do it? While the answer is likely different for every synagogue, school, and youth group, it’s helpful and encouraging to hear about others’ successes, triumphs, and their lessons learned. So we’re running this regular column, called “The Tachlis of Inclusion,” to spotlight practices and policies that have worked for Jewish institutions all over the country.
Rabbi Jill Borodin
We spoke with Rabbi Jill Borodin of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Seattle, WA, to find out how this congregation has evolved on the issue of LGBT inclusion, to become a place where the rabbi performs same-sex marriages and speaks publicly in support of marriage equality. Learn more about Congregation Beth Shalom’s LGBT inclusive offerings here.
What does Congregation Beth Shalom do for same-sex commitment ceremonies and weddings? I’ve read that in 2001 your predecessor took a year to deliberate whether or not to perform a commitment ceremony. I know you weren’t at Beth Shalom then, but can you speak to where you are as a community now? What did the process of that evolution look like? Was there community support?
You’re right – we do both commitment ceremonies and same-sex weddings. My predecessor did one, but I think that’s because he was only asked once. I’ve done three in the last eight years, and I’ve got another one on the calendar. Continue reading
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LGBT Resources for Holocaust Remembrance Day
When the last known gay Jewish Holocaust survivor, Gad Beck, died in 2012, it was a poignant reminder that both Jews and LGBTQ people simply cannot depend on survivors to tell the stories of the Shoah. The responsibility for remembering Holocaust-related history falls upon all of us. Within the Jewish community, it has been standard to commemorate the Holocaust for decades; within the LGBTQ world, rituals are still emerging.
Sidney, Australia memorial for LGBT victims of the Holocaust. Creative Commons/mulch.thief
Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah, falls this year on April 8th. For those of you interested in adding some LGBTQ content to your observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, we bring you the following resources.
- Watch “Paragraph 175,” a documentary film with unforgettable interviews with gay survivors and the punishments they suffered even after the war ended. The title refers to the law that made homosexuality illegal in Nazi Germany. (You can catch the trailer here.)
- Read The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, for a comprehensive history of how the LGBT community was targeted by the Nazi regime. Continue reading
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Sarah Tuttle-Singer on Jewrotica
There’s a new player on the Jewish blog scene, and it’s not holding back. Jewrotica is a “pluralistic and sex-positive organization that explores the intersection of Judaism and sexuality through essays, literature, erotica, and in-person programming.” Keshet caught up with Sarah Tuttle-Singer, former social media outreach coordinator and current contributor, to ask about what it’s like to write for Jewrotica, and what the existence of this new site might mean for LGBT Jews.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
You’re a writer for a variety of Jewish publications – in what ways (other than the very obvious one) is Jewrotica different?
I’m a big believer in authenticity – in “owning your sh*t.” In other words, if you’ve got something provocative to say, then say it boldly, and don’t cower behind cheap metaphor. Writing for Jewrotica is a literalization of this – because unlike publishing on Kveller and Times of Israel (two sites which I adore!) not only is the content I submit on Jewrotica potentially problematic, but explaining the article in the context of the site also invites a secondary conversation. (Just ask my dad.) Continue reading
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The Kavannah for Gay Ordination
On March 26, 2007, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the legal and spiritual center for Conservative Judaism in America, responded to a new tshuvah, or Jewish legal ruling, issued by that movement, and officially announced it would ordain openly gay and lesbian rabbis.
This rainbow sign says “Welcome!” in Hebrew. Photo via Keshet JTS
At an all day conference at the Seminary marking the one year anniversary of this historic decision, two rabbis offered a special kavannah, or guiding intention.
Rabbis Karen Reiss Medwed and Francince Roston wrote this kavannah to commemorate the occasion, using a traditional format and liturgical vocabulary. We bring you this kavannah to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Conservative movement’s decision to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis, a major step towards making the Jewish world an more inclusive space for LGBTQ Jews.
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Keeping Safe Spaces Safe
Jordan Dashow, Tufts student and Keshet intern, and Joanna Ware, Keshet’s Lead Organizer and Training Coordinator, at Keshet’s LGBTQ Teen and Ally Shabbaton, January, 2013.
“If it doesn’t bring more love into the world, it probably isn’t religion.”
The date was October 13, 2010, and I was at Tufts University’s Coming Out Day Rally. At the rally, Tufts University’s Jewish Chaplain, Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, spoke about the importance of not just tolerating people’s differences but embracing them and told the crowd the statement quoted above. This message was so simple, yet so powerful — and so powerfully different from what I expected a religious leader speaking about LGBTQ issues to say.
Growing up, I attended a Conservative Jewish Day School from kindergarten until 12th grade. Throughout high school, I struggled to come to terms with my sexual orientation and my religious beliefs. I was forced to grapple with these issues alone, as my high school did not offer any support for queer students and in general ignored their existence. As far as I know, no one has ever come out in my high school (though one student who was already out transferred in) and homophobic comments, including the commonly repeated phrase “that’s so gay,” went unchallenged. Consequently, I never felt safe coming out in high school.
Note: The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author. All comments on MyJewishLearning are moderated. Any comment that is offensive or inappropriate will be removed. Privacy Policy
