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Tag : LGBTQ JEws
December 6, 2019 by admin
Lesléa Newman: What Happened When I Was Uninvited to a Yeshiva
Originally posted on the Nerdy Book Club.
I have been invited to hundreds of schools as a visiting author over the last several decades. And there are hundreds (thousands!) of schools who haven’t invited me. But I have never been uninvited to a school. Until now.
Here’s what happened: my publisher set up several days worth of school visits at a few yeshivas (Jewish day schools) in Brooklyn, the city of my birth. I was excited to discuss with students my newest picture book, Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story. Based on my own family history, the book tells how nine-year-old Gittel travels from Europe to America alone in the early 1900’s to escape pogroms and have a better life. It is a story infused with Jewish culture (Gittel’s mother gives Gittel her treasured Shabbos candlesticks to bring to the new world) and Jewish values (Gittel’s mother tells her, “This is God’s plan. God will take care of you.”) I imagined that the students might have their own family immigration stories to share and I was eager to hear them.
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July 9, 2019 by admin
Life-Affirming for All, Life-Saving for Some •
It’s quite a title! “Principles for Gender-Inclusive Puberty and Health Education” is a publication to guide health education teachers help all students understand that each will travel a unique road as their bodies develop, and feel safe, seen and supported in their classrooms. Gender Spectrum, which works with youth, parents and families, youth-serving professionals, corporations, government and other institutions, created this useful resource. genderspectrum.org
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July 9, 2019 by admin
LGBTQ & Ally Teen Shabbaton Gatherings •
Teens who celebrate shabbat every week or never; teens who have been out or ally-identified for 5 years or 5 minutes, or who are curious to learn more gather for Shabbat. These programs are open to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, asexual, queer, pansexual, and questioning, Jewish teens as well as their allies in grades 8–12 from across the United States. Come for weekends of fun and community, celebrate Shabbat and learn about LGBTQ organizing and identities. https://www.keshetonline.org/shabbaton/.
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August 23, 2018 by Tara Mendola
Bloody Waters at the Mikveh
The tablecloths in this palatial Newton synagogue are all Tiffany blue, as are the event programs and the lanyards for our nametags, which have High Holiday-style fundraiser cards on the back. My nametag is as expected. My companion S’s, however, lists the name and title of a Baptist preacher, a woman who runs an abortion outreach group funded by Planned Parenthood. This woman had invited me to be her date to this shindig weeks before—presumably as she didn’t want to be the lone Christian clergyperson at a mikveh fundraising gala without a Jewish wingwoman—but had succumbed to a late-spring cold at the eleventh hour. S., magnanimously, agreed to come with me instead.
“Come on,” I’d said to my friend S, “It’s a mikveh gala with circus arts. It cannot possibly be boring.”
“Alright,” she’d said, grimly, “but I am not changing and I am not putting on heels. It’s 6PM on Thursday; that’s a time for people with nannies.”
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June 29, 2018 by Kira Yates
Six Young, LGBTQ+ Jews Get Real About Identity
As Pride Month comes to an end, we asked six Jews who are also in the LGBTQIA+ community to speak about the interactions among their many identities. It is daunting to describe your identity in a few words, but the people featured below have done so with radical frankness —telling stories of coming out, coming to terms with identity, and joining together as a community, all of which define their lives Jewish, as LGBTQIA+, and at the intersections between the two.
Rochelle, 22
I feel as though being Jewish prepared me for being queer. When I was a small child, I learned how to move through the world with my Jewish identity always present but semi-hidden, and how to gauge when was a safe time to reveal it. I hold my lesbian identity very similarly, though recently I have been struggling to find ways to make both more visible.
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