#LGBTQ Orthodox Jews

[askjumblr]

So, I have a few questions to everyone and I mean this in good faith:1.Does Orthodox Judaism generally accept Reform and Conservative Jews or is there a "no-true scotsman" issue like in Christianity with the Unity branch vs Conservative Christianity, which is most Christian Branches. 2. What are the views on Homosexuality? I generally heard mainly Orthodox Jews don't support it, but some Orthodox Jews do. 3. Does the issue with Abortion that Christianity has also apply to Orthodox Jews? I know the fetus personhood™️ only seems to apply to Christians.

P.S I am ExChristian trying to get an understanding of Judaism so I can keep this whole Judaism=Christianity without Jesus behind me. I genuinely don't want to end up like those antisemetic Atheists who hate both.

Please state your frame of reference clearly when answering

[ask-a-queer-jew]

Today is Yom Kippur

Shout out to all the queer Jews who have to explain this holiday to their queer friends.

Shout out to all the queer Jews who have friends that respond with laughter, or calling fasting child abuse, or asking why you even bother.

Shout out to all the queer Jews who feel conflicted over this holiday.

Shout out to all the queer Jews forced to participate (you deserve to make your own choices).

Shout out to all the queer Jews who are in traditional communities, and will read in tomorrow's torah reading that being queer is wrong

Shout out to all the queer Jews who feel the need to repent for their queerness (you are perfect the way you are).

Shout out to all the queer Jews who are tired of lying, and tired of repenting for lying.

Shout out to all the queer Jews who can only think of all the times and all the people they are lying to every time they read Al Chet (על חטא)

Shout out to all the queer Jews who think of how many less sins they'd commit if only they weren't queer.

Shout out to all the queer Jews who do not feel safe today.

Shout out to all the queer Jews who do not know if or when they will ever feel safe on Yom Kippur.

You are all accepted here. You deserve a voice. My DMs are open if you need someone to talk to. This holiday can be challenging, but you will make it through.

[my-jewish-life]

Now it's finally up and live!

Welcome to my Jewish Discord Server, Tikkun Olam! Me and a friend wanted to create a safe space for Jewish people after October 7th. After a while we finally were able to create it. Some things are still being worked on but feel free to join^^

[tamamita]

I've been hearing a lot of Zionists claim that Neturei Karta is an anti-lgbtq group (see pink-washing, homonationalism), and while it's obvious, considering they're well... Ultra-orthodox Jews, it doesn't matter, because even if we consider the most progressive of Jewish organizations, like Jewish voices for peace, they're still being accused of being self-hating Jews or out-right defamed as non-Jews, so Zionists don't really discriminate between Anti-Zionist Jews. As long as you're a Jewish person who is against the settler state, they'll look consider you their enemy.

Lastly, who cares what a Zionist has to say, they support a genocide.

[mariacallous]

After trying for five years to dissuade lawmakers in Missouri from enacting laws he believed would endanger his son and other transgender youth in the state, Russel Neiss finally admitted defeat.

The state��s ban in 2023 on transgender medical care for minors devastated Neiss, but it also came with something of an upside for him: no more sacrificing his family’s time to testify at the Missouri statehouse. No more sitting politely with his son while enduring hurtful comments from officials.

The battle was over, and it was time to find somewhere else to live — a state without legislation that could lead to loss of custody over his son, or the denial of medical care. But not just any haven for transgender youth would do. It also had to be a place where the family could continue to live as Orthodox Jews, with a synagogue that wouldn’t shun their child. 

“Trying to figure out where to go, we counted 10 Orthodox communities nationwide that might accept our family,” Neiss said, noting that he consulted a list of LGBTQ-friendly congregations compiled by a group called Eshel. “There are about four places that we can afford, and maybe one place where we actually wanted to live.”

He is married to Rori Picker Neiss, who is a “rabba,” a title for Orthodox women trained in Jewish law, and works as the senior vice president for community relations Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Their son’s bar mitzvah in April 2024 — which they made sure conformed to Orthodox standards — also served as an occasion to say goodbye to their community in Missouri. A few months later, they relocated to Pennsylvania, joining a congregation called South Philadelphia Shtiebel.

“There’s a reason we drew a mile-radius circle around Shtiebel, and were like, ‘We need a house somewhere in here,’” Neiss said. “They have built the most welcoming space I have ever been a part of. Full stop.”

It was a blissful time for the Neiss family.

“We had a solid six months of not worrying at every moment,” he said. “In Missouri, we were fighting legislation and the stress was hanging over us, day after day after day. So we were enjoying the respite.”

That respite ended in January when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. He had run on an anti-trans platform targeting health care, athletics and social protections. 

In the 11 days after his swearing-in, Trump has begun to make good on those vows. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female, and invalidating anyone’s deviation from their sex as a “false claim” spurred by “gender ideology.” Next, he banned transgender troops from serving in the military. Exact numbers are unknown, but several thousand U.S. service members are transgender. In his executive order, Trump suggested that they are mentally or physically sick, dishonorable and selfish. 

On Tuesday, he signed an executive order that aims to outlaw gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, describing such treatments as a form of child abuse, a view that implicates both medical providers and parents.

Neiss and his family had been expecting this, and preparing for it.

“It was just a question of how much, how fast and what would they get away with?” he said. “And then, well, what do we have to do to keep our family safe and secure?”

For fear of the worst coming to pass, he declined to detail what specific measures the family might be considering.

Caution when discussing contingency plans is not unique to Neiss. One Jewish woman with a transgender child agreed to discuss her family’s preparations on condition of anonymity. Living in Colorado, the family was feeling relatively safe. That changed with the inauguration. 

“We are now very scared to the point that we’re packing go-bags,” she said. “We have mapped a route to drive out of the country if something goes crazy. And we’re buying gold bullion.”

The woman, who comes from Holocaust survivors, continued, “I’m not waiting until they come to round us up. And I know that sounds hysterical, but, listen, my grandparents waited too long.”

Minors who transition can be offered therapy to help process the change, as well as social support in picking a new name and clothing. Some may take puberty blockers and at an older age, receive hormone therapy. In rare cases, doctors may administer mastectomies and genital surgery. 

Gender-affirming interventions have been shown to reduce rates of self-harm and depression among transgender youth. 

The nonprofit organization Keshet and other Jewish LGBTQ advocates were among those who denounced Trump’s executive orders as hateful and dangerous. 

“As people who come from a tradition that sees each one of us as created in the divine image, we recognize these actions as defaming God and betraying the preciousness of life; we see these actions as motivated by people in power seeking to create a world in their narrow image — certaintly not God’s,” Keshet said in a statement following Trump’s latest action. 

In social media and texting groups, LGBTQ Jews and their allies are supporting each other by sharing feelings of dismay, fear and despair. They are also consulting their communities on what measures they can take to safeguard their families. Those who may not be directly or immediately affected are offering material support. 

A Jewish woman in Oregon, for example, posted that her home is available to take in transgender youth who are escaping abusive or unsafe situations. She noted that her home is ��moderately kosher.” (The Jewish Telegraphic Agency is not providing her name given the sensitivity of the issue and because she did not respond to an inquiry.)

Rabbi Mike Moskowitz of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, which bills itself as the world’s largest LGBTQ synagogue, posted a video message for transgender Jews on the synagogue’s Instagram page.  

“For those of you who feel scared or alone, we see you, we love you,” Moskowitz said. “God doesn’t put extra people in this world — we need you.”

In Chicago, where transgender rights are relatively secure, Danielle Solzman, a freelance film critic who is transgender, is considering immigrating to Israel. For her health care, she relies on Medicaid, which is a federal program and therefore run by the Trump administration. Trump has so far not targeted gender-affirming care for those, including Solzman, who are 19 years old and over. 

“If things get worse, as I expect they will. It’s going to give me no choice but to move to Israel, where the treatment I need is accessible,” she said in an interview. 

Solzman was already considering moving there, but for a different reason. 

“Right after Oct. 7, it was going to be antisemitism that would force me into moving, not federally mandated transphobia,” she said. “Trump is not looking at trans people as being human. He’s looking at us as being subhuman. It’s like 1930s Germany all over again.”

Several lawmakers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are openly anti-LGBTQ rights, but Netanyahu has vowed to block them from advancing discriminatory legislation. The country scores relatively high on LGBTQ legal rights compared to the rest of the world, according to an index by a group called Equaldex, which says Israel is among 28 countries where gender-affirming care is legal. With the country’s universal healthcare system, Israelis generally have access to many kinds of treatments, including hormone replacement therapy. 

In the United States, the policy effects of Trump’s executive orders are still mostly uncertain, and they have no direct or immediate impact on Neiss’ son. But the message they send is clear to Neiss. 

“The order suggests that living as a trans person — that my son’s entire existence is up for debate, and that is unconscionable,” he said. “When you start talking about people as lesser than or as inhuman, that’s language which puts people at risk.”

Neiss is also disappointed that the historical echo of Nazism he hears in Trump’s rhetoric isn’t spurring more alarm among mainstream Jewish leaders.

“The dominant Jewish community has nothing to say on this particular issue, and it is a huge moral failing,” he said. 

Transgender rights are not at the center of the mainstream Jewish advocacy agenda. Many left-leaning Jewish groups, however, have at minimum criticized efforts to ban transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports. In January, before the inauguration, more than 100 groups — including the umbrella organization for Reform Judaism, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, the leading Reconstructionist Jewish groups and the National Council of Jewish Women — signed a letter opposing a transgender sports ban bill in Congress.

Neiss and his wife don’t immediately update their 13-year-old son with every news headline. As with many parents in difficult circumstances, the Neisses want to deliver the unvarnished truth without sparking panic in their son. 

“We’ve made sure that he’s gotten the love and support that he needs and so we can be truthful with him,” Neiss said “Then we tell him, ‘We got your back.’ And he says, ‘I know it,’ because he believes it.”

[psychologeek]

Rb this as an orthodox jew, who was in a queer youth movement (in the religious group).

Rb this for my ultra orthodox grandparents, who are the kindest people I ever met.

Rb this for everyone I heard saying "well, I don't agree with this, but they are still people"*.

This is not to earase the struggle and real issues LGBTQs face in orthodox and Haredi communities.

But this also shouldn't be discussed by people who use it as a reason to hate. Because, hi, guess what?

Saying "oh yeah, those Haredis are all homophobic and terrible people" doesn't help ANYBODY.

It only make it way-way harder to be queer, as it connects "queer" to "Haredi/Dati haters", and therefore make it much harder r for those who are queer+ortho to get help, and also make Orthodox people very suspicious about queer ppl because "they are against religious beliefs."

*for people who most exposed to LGBTQ as "those people who dance naked on trucks during parade" it's a HUGE thing.

Why has it suddenly become socially acceptable to shit on Orthodox Jews? People really think of Orthodox Judaism as "problematic" Judaism and it shows. No, Orthodox Jews aren't more likely than your average person to commit a homophobic hate crime against you. They are not likely to be rude to you and if they are, that one person you spoke to is an asshole and doesn't reflect the entire group. And also, Haredi Jews are not "strange," they are not pulling everyone else down. You can't not be antisemitic if the only Judaism you find acceptable is Judaism that you believe aligns more with your own culturally Xtian values. Do better.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

hi! i was wondering: if modern stucky decided they want to raise jewish children, would need to use a jewish egg donor? very sorry for my lack of knowledge, i've tried to research the answer but haven't found much info on gay men having jewish kids?

Amazing question! When it comes to understanding the answer, it helps to view Judaism as a tribal religion with its own requirements for membership.

Adoption: Non-Jewish child[ren], if they are raised Jewshly, would need an age-appropriate conversion. Childhood converts generally get a choice at some point if they want to remain Jewish or not.

According to religious law (halacha), someone is Jewish if they: -> Were born to a Jewish mother -> Undergo a formally recognized conversion

For surrogacy & egg donation, Judaism is passed through the -> Gestational surrogate (Conservative & Orthodox opinion) -> Egg donor (Alternative Orthodox opinion) -> Egg donor and gestational surrogate (Growing opinion)

In Reform & Reconstructionist Judaism, born Jews a) Are born to at least one Jewish parent, regardless of DNA, and b) Are raised to have an exclusive Jewish identity, and c) Engage in timely formal public acts affirming that identity

To ensure the acceptance of their child as a Jew, parents may -> Utilize both a Jewish egg donor and gestational surrogate -> Have their child[ren] undergo an age-appropriate conversion

Important Considerations: Patrilineal Jews aren't accepted as Jewish by most movements or communities, so conversion might be recommended. Non-Orthodox groups will often recognize approved conversions from other movements, while Orthodox groups only recognize Orthodox conversions.

Sources Under the Cut

Who Is a Jew: Patrilineal Descent Egg Donation & Surrogacy, Gestational Surrogacy: The Immunology Behind It and Its Halachic Implications, How does Reform Judaism define who is a Jew?, Reform Movement's Resolution on Patrilineal Descent , Ask the Expert: Egg Donors, Converting Infants and Children, NYP no. 5767.2, IVF & Surrogacy in Judaism: A 2024 Guide, What Does Jewish Law Say About Surrogacy?, The Jewish Faith, A Guide for Surrogacy & Minor Conversion in Jewish Law, Maternal Identity, An Alternative to Maternal Identity, Intentional Fertility: LGBTQ+ Family Building, Questions about Jewish Adoption and Surrogacy, Is Surrogacy Permitted According to Orthodox Judaism?, Surrogacy in Orthodox Judaism, Maternal identity for Orthodox Jewish Couples, Orthodox View on Egg Donation, ‘Inherited Jewish status can be gained from any parent’, I'm Jewish. How Should I Be Thinking About A Jewish Egg Donor?, On Patrilineal Descent Archives, Are You My Surrogate?, Embracing What It Means to Be Jewish and…: Patrilineal identity, A Reconstructionist View on Patrilineal Descent, Patrilineal Descent & the Shaping of Intermarriage Discourse in American Judaism, Patrilineal Descent and Same-Sex Parents, CARR 61-68

[scrumpster]

LGBTQ+ Jewish Resources and Organizations

Happy Pride! Here's a few links I've collected to hopefully reach whoever in the Jewish community may need them. If you're considering donating a bit of money or volunteer time this Pride, please consider looking into these efforts (at your own discretion, as many of these may be local to specific areas). Please feel free to add on to this list, and any queer Jews reading are welcome to link their personal donation posts in the comments.

The SMQN, an organization for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews

Keshet, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews

JQY, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews with a focus on those in Orthodox communities

Queer Jews of Color Resource List (note: this list is way more than just resources, there’s a LOT of helpful stuff in here) JQ International: In their own words, "JQ celebrates the lives of LGBTQ+ Jews and their allies by transforming Jewish communities and ensuring inclusion through community building, educational programs, and support and wellness services, promoting the healthy integration of LGBTQ+ and Jewish identities."

Ritualwell (check out their blessings related to gender identity!) 

Guimel, an LGBTQ+ support group for the Jewish Community in Mexico. The site is in Spanish. I’m not a native speaker, but I was still able to read a little bit of it. 

SVARA: In their own words, “SVARA’s mission is to empower queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study.”

TransTorah is definitely an older website, but there are still some miscellaneous pdfs and resources up on the “Resources” page.

SOJOURN: In their own words, "The Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender & Sexual Diversity (SOJOURN) is the American South's resource for Jewish & LGBTQ+ programming, education, support, and advocacy."

[schraubd]

Jews Against Jews Who Discriminate

This is an interesting story about a New Jersey kosher bakery who refused to bake rainbow-frosted cupcakes because the baker decided Pride-themed events violated his conception of Jewish values. This decision, in turn, has led to a furious backlash from the rest of the local Jewish community, who are livid that the baker is citing Jewish values as justification for homophobic discrimination:

Multiple rabbis have accused the baker of bigotry, and some local Jews are boycotting his shop. The area’s Jewish federation privately said it would stop buying from Mittel before publicly walking back its position. And Eshel, an advocacy group for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews and their families, announced an “ally training” in West Orange this coming Sunday in response to the incident.

[....] 

The issue blew up as other rabbis in the area learned about what happened and commented publicly.

“When we refuse basic Jewish services to members of our community who are articulating who they are, we are excluding and dividing,” wrote Robert Tobin, rabbi of the Conservative B’nai Shalom in West Orange, in a blog post on June 22. He highlighted the Conservative movement’s recent strides toward LGBTQ inclusion, and an interpretation of the Torah that holds “humans are created in the image of God with a variety of potential gender identities and with the possibility of gender fluidity.” Tobin also reportedly addressed the incident in a sermon, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.

David Vaisberg, senior rabbi at the independent Temple B’nei Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey, tweeted that he was “so disappointed” in the bakery, which is located in a strip mall next to a kosher Chinese restaurant.

“They make great baked goods but have shown themselves to be against the LGBTQ+ in canceling orders of rainbow baked goods in Pride month,” he wrote, adding that he was letting the bakery know why they had lost his business and advised followers to “please do the same.” 

This reminded me of a working paper I heard about from years back (which I don't believe has been published, unfortunately), where the author asked Jewish, Christian, and Muslim respondents to give their views regarding government accommodations for Jewish, Christian, or Muslim business owners who for religious reasons did not want to serve gay customers. The most fascinating finding, as I recall, was that Jews were least likely to support an accommodation if they were told it was a Jewish business seeking to discriminate.

At one level, that was a surprising finding -- we'd naturally expect Jews (like all other groups) to display some level of in-group bias, being more sympathetic to claims made by their coreligionists. But on another level, this result made perfect sense to me. Ask me in the abstract about whether business owners can claim a religious exemption from having to serve gay customers, and I'll generally answer no, but I'll acknowledge the important religious freedom and pluralism concerns blah blah blah. 

But if somebody asks to do that while carrying my flag and representing my people? Oh, hell no. Screw that guy. You get your ass back into line and stop embarrassing the tribe with your homophobic nonsense. And I suspect something similar is going on in this community of New Jersey Jews.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/MnOubxC

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Anyway, just for anyone following along at home, here are some orthodox organizations that are working on gender and sexuality issues within the broader orthodox community:

[ravenssunshine]

please respond to this post!!

hello doing a bit of thinking. basically i’ve been to israel and i’ve experienced both the secular lifestyle and the religious lifestyle and i don’t particularly like the way the chief rabbinate controls things to orthodox standards— i am not and will never be orthodox and have great qualms with the treatment of women and lgbtq people by religious authorities in israel. the religious authority is also what prevents a one state solution with completely equal rights for palestinians in israel. so… the solution is to dismantle the chief rabbinate… except how can we trust that a country without jewish officials to continue being safe for jews. even if those jewish officials don’t exactly operate in my interest, are they needed? do i know? nope. tldr i don’t think i like theocracies all that much but how can we be sure of jewish safety without one?

[librarycards]

if it's not too personal, which sect of judaism are you in?

fyi, mostly jews talk about ideological/spiritual/sociocultural movements rather than sects - bc we're all jews. (that said, this gets more complicated when considering the delegitimization of patrilineal jews and non-orthodox converts by orthodoxy)

i underwent a reform conversion. my main supervising rabbi was affiliated with the renewal movement specifically, but i'm not super attached to it.

i consider myself an observant reform jew now. i prefer services that lean more 'traditional' than i've found at reform shuls i've attended, but the refusal to 'condone' interfaith marriages (and, in practice, relationships broadly) keeps me, and until something changes, will continue to keep me, from joining a Conservative community.

though neither of my parents is jewish, as the product of an interfaith marriage, support + representation for interfaith couples is as necessary in a spiritual/cultural community for me as support + representation for LGBTQ people.

[fierceawakening]

So this is going around:

And I don't want to derail or belittle the excitement of the people sharing this as a wonderful thing. I agree that it is.

However, I am making my own post to note this:

Queerness is a fraught subject in modern Orthodoxy, whose adherents generally abide by halacha — Jewish law — and engage fully with secular society, unlike Haredi Jews who tend to live in insular communities. A pair of verses in Leviticus explicitly prohibiting male gay sex provide Biblical pretext for excluding queer people, and Yeshiva University — Rabbi Brick’s alma mater — has made national headlines over the past two years for refusing to recognize its LGBTQ+ student club. A gay Orthodox man who was ousted from his Florida shul early this year took to picketing outside it. The clinical director of an advocacy group called Jewish Queer Youth says that among the 2,000 young people from Orthodox families it has served since 2016, some 70% have considered suicide. One, a YU graduate like Brick, died by suicide this summer, just before the Shabbat when the portion of Leviticus with the prohibition against gay male sex would be read.

and

He is also single, and declined to say whether he plans to date — or whether he thinks people can pursue same-sex relationships within the bounds of halacha. That silence may be helping him win — for now — tolerance among his colleagues. After all, a 2022 white paper on welcoming queer Orthodox Jews begins its second paragraph, “Our starting point as Orthodox Jews is clear: Sexual relations between people of the same sex is forbidden.” But Brick much prefers to talk — and teach — about other things. He has developed a series of lesson plans that consider halachic issues for queer Jews, and is teaching them to his high school students. And they have nothing to do with sex. “What’s missing in the world is not another person trying to re-understand this verse in Leviticus,” Brick said. “That’s a closed book. We know what it means, we know what it stands for. But talking about queer experiences is not as two-dimensional as talking about the permissibility or non-permissibility of very specific sex acts. There is a lot more to a person — a lot more to these questions — that is worth exploring.”

I do not ever want to hear "It's just Christians" ever again.

I have seen the Tumblr posts that just say "oh, you're a little unclean after gay sex, it's no big." I am glad to see them, but that isn't what this looks like it says at all.

So while I'm sure I will see "only Christians are Like That, because Christianity is uniquely authoritarian" again...

...this is me officially putting "maybe don't" in writing, so I can point people at it when they do this thing again.

[mariacallous]

A theatrical production based on the memoir of an ex-Hasidic transgender rabbi and activist, set to premiere in New York early next year, is scrambling to find a new home after its landlord rejected the script last week.

The landlord? The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

The production has become a casualty of a dispute between the East Village’s Connelly Theater, which had long staged provocative works, and the archdiocese, which owns the venue. The archdiocese has recently placed the theater under increased scrutiny, exercising a clause that gives it approval of plays shown at its property. The Catholic school that serves as the go-between between the church and the theater said it is “suspending all operations of its theater,” The New York Times reported.

Abby Stein, author of the 2019 memoir “Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman,” was alerted last Wednesday that the adaptation of her book would no longer be permitted at the Connelly Theater.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Stein said in an interview. “I’m not going to come up and pretend, ‘Oh my God, the Catholic Church doesn’t like trans people, I’m shocked.’ I wouldn’t say that. I think we all know that. It’s just extremely frustrating that even in a place like New York, it’s still something you need to think about.”

She added, “It feels like we’re taking one step forward, two steps back. This shouldn’t be something we’re still worried about.”

Josh Luxenberg, the Off Broadway theater’s general manager for the past 10 years, resigned last Friday, telling The New York Times that he was reluctant to serve as a “censor rather than an advocate of artistic freedom.” The theater was built in the 1860s, according to its “About Us” page, which still lists Luxenburg as general manager and calls itself “a home for adventurous independent theater productions.” Its main stage theater seats 200.

The Archdiocese of New York did not respond to a request for comment. Its director of communications told the Times that the decision reflected longstanding norms about its oversight of content shared in its buildings. The archdiocese has previously required public schools renting space it owns to hold sex education instruction off-campus.

“It is the standard practice of the archdiocese that nothing should take place on church-owned property that is contrary to the teaching of the church,” Joseph Zwilling told the newspaper. “That applies as well to plays, television shows or movies being shot, music videos being recorded, or other performances.”

“Becoming Eve” tells the story of Stein’s journey as a rabbi and heir to a prominent Hasidic dynasty who left her insular community in 2012 and publicly came out as transgender in 2015. The book became a bestseller, and she became an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and for Hasidic Jews who leave their communities. Stein is currently a part-time rabbi at the independent congregation Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn as well as an activist on causes including opposing Israel’s war in Gaza.

“I did not expect myself to be at the crosshairs of the Archdiocese of New York,” Stein said.

As an adaptation of Stein’s memoir, the play “centers on a conversation between Abby, her devout father and a young liberal rabbi, as they reckon with questions of gender and faith,” according to Playbill.

“Becoming Eve” is one of at least three shows booted out of the Connelly Theater by the Archdiocese. SheNYC, a summer theater festival for plays by female, nonbinary and transgender artists, said in a statement that it has also been told by the Archdiocese that it cannot use the theater next summer.

“It’s a total shock that somehow, strict conservative ideals are dictating what can happen in a NYC theater,” SheNYC posted on Instagram. “We’re heartbroken by this loss. And we’re not going to lie – this puts us in a tough spot for our 2025 season, which is also our 10-year anniversary.”

The comedy show “Jack Tucker: Comedy Standup Hour,” a solo show by comedian Zach Zucker, who is Jewish, featuring his alter-ego Jack Tucker, was in the works to transfer to the Connelly Theater in early September for a limited run following a successful turn at the SoHo Playhouse. But the archdiocese rejected the show days before it was set to begin. Zucker had to relocate and postpone the show.

In an Instagram post announcing the new dates and location, Zucker said of the Ccurch, “Why’d they do this? We’ll never know. But what I do know is that God will never stop me.”

“Becoming Eve” is written by Em Weinstein, produced by Dayna Bloom and Brian Lee, and directed by Tyne Rafaeli. It will be in previews in March and is set to premiere in April of 2025.

New York Theatre Workshop, which is producing the play, is in the process of finding an alternate venue.

“We remain fiercely committed to presenting Emil Weinstein’s compelling and singular play, Becoming Eve, in our season,” New York Theatre Workshop said in a statement. “We are profoundly disappointed by the Archdiocese’s decision and reaffirm our unwavering commitment to produce this powerful story. We are in talks with a new venue and look forward to sharing the details very soon. We are proud to produce this compelling story and to champion its artists and ethos.”

[dragoneyes618]

"The delayed clarity on what exactly happened in Jersey City muted some of the public empathy that instantly followed the previous attacks. So did the identities of the attackers, both of whom were Black, and their targets, who were Hasidic Jews - who, it has progressively become clear, many otherwise enlightened Americans view as absolutely fair game for bigotry.

This was obvious from reporting within hours of the attacks, which gave surprising emphasis to the murdered Jews as "gentrifying" a "minority" neighborhood. This was remarkable, given that the tiny Hasidic community in question, highly visible members of the world's most consistently persecuted minority, in fact came to Jersey City fleeing gentrification, after being priced out of long-established Hasidic communities in Brooklyn. More tellingly, as the journalist Armin Rosen has pointed out, the apparently murderous rage against gentrification has yet to result in anyone using automatic weapons to blow away white hipsters at the newest Blue Bottle Coffee franchise. What was most remarkable about this angle, however, was how it was presented in media reports as providing "context."

The "context" supplied by news outlets after this attack was breathtaking in its cruelty. As the Associated Press explained in a news report about the Jersey Cijty murders that was picked up by NBC and many other outlets, "The slayings happened in a neighborhood where Hasidic families had recently been relocating, amid pushback from some local officials who complained about representatives of the community going door to door, offering to buy homes at Brooklyn prices." (Like many homeowners, I too have been approached by real estate agents asking me if I wanted to sell my home. I recall saying no, though I suppose murdering these people would also have made them go away.) New Jersey's state newspaper, the Star-Ledger, helpfully pointed out that "the attack that killed two Orthodox Jews, an Ecuadorian immigrant and a Jersey City police detective has highlighted racial tension that had been simmering ever since ultra-Orthodox Jews began moving to a lower-income community" - even though the assailants never lived in Jersey City and apparently chose their target simply through internet searches for Jewish institutions in the New York area. The Washington Post began its analysis of the murders by announcing that Jersey City "is grappling with whether the attack reflects underlying ethnic tensions locally and fears that it could spark new ones" - even though the rest of the article described in detail how "longtime black residents and ultra-Orthodox implants alike say that they haven't experienced significant ethnic tensions here." Nonetheless, readers were informed, "the influx of Hasidic residents comes as many of the longtime black residents feel increasingly squeezed." This was all abut gentrification, the public learned. The assailants, who wore socially acceptable clothing, were expressing an understandable communal sentiment. The newly dead Jews, on the other hand, were members of the unharassed majority, despite being the country's top hate-crime target according to the FBI. They were also rich, despite experiencing the same poverty levels as the rest of New York and New Jersey. On top of that, they wore unfashionable hats. So it kind of made sense that people wanted to murder their children with high-impact explosives.

I was not able to find any similar "context" in media reports after the 2015 massacre at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, or the 2016 massacre at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida, or the 2019 massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas frequented by Latino shoppers - all hate-crime attacks that unambiguously targeted minority groups. In each of those cases, as was true in Jersey City, media coverage included sympathetic pieces about the victims, along with investigative pieces about the perpetrators, the latter focused on how perpetrators were drawn into violent irrational hatred. But in reviewing media reports from the aftermath of these events, I found no coverage of how straight people in Orlando other than the perpetrator - in other words, reasonable, non-murderous, relatable "normal" neighbors - were understandably upset about gay couples setting up shop in the neighborhood and disrupting their "way of life," or about how white people with deep family roots in Charleston felt understandably wistful about the Black community's "takeover" of certain previously white neighborhoods, or about how non-Latinos in El Paso felt "squeezed" by ongoing "tensions" with Latinos who had pushed for more bilingualism in schools.

No one covered this "context," because doing that would be bonkers. It would be hateful victim-blaming, the equivalent of analyzing the flattering selfies of a rape victim in lurid detail in order to provide "context" for a sexual assault. That doesn't mean the intergroup tensions (or the problems with flattering selfies) aren't ever worth examining. It simply means that presenting such analysis as a hot take after a massacre is not merely disgusting and inhuman, but also a form of the very same hatred that caused the massacre - because the sole motivation for providing such "context" in that moment is to inform the public that those people got what was coming to them. People who think of themselves as educated and ethical don't do this, because it is both factually untrue and morally wrong. But if we're talking about Hasidic Jews, it is quite literally a different story, and there is one very simple reason why.

The mental gymnastics required to get the Jersey City attack out of my head were challenging, especially when the Jewish community int he New York area was treated in the two weeks following this massacre to more than a dozen other assaults of varying degrees, most of them coming during the festival of Hanukkah. These included Jews being slapped, punched, kicked, and beaten on the streets by people who made their motives clear by shouting antisemtiic insults, and many other variants on this theme that received much less attention. (One that shook me personally was when a young white man broke into my students' dormitory at yeshiva University at four a.m. and started a fire - using matches from the dorm lobby's Hanukkah candle-lighting.) All this was merely an intensified version of physical assaults on Hasidic Jews in New York that had been happening regularly for over a year - incidents that ranged from run-of-the-mill acts of knocking elderly people to the ground to the rather more advanced tactic of clobbering someone over the head with a large paving stone, causing a fractured skull.

This new normal culminated in a particularly horrifying attack, when a man entered a crowded Hanukkah party at a Hasidic rabbi's house in Monsey, New York, wielding a four-foot machete, and stabbed or slashed five people, all of whom where hospitalized; one victim, who fell into a coma, died several months later from his wounds. Stabbing Jews was apparently in vogue in Monsey, as this was actually the second antisemitic knifing in town in just over a month. The previous attacks victim was beaten and stabbed while walking to morning prayers, winding up in critical condition withe head injuries. Media coverage of these attacks also sometimes featured "context" (read: gaslighting), mentioning heated schoolboard or zoning battles between Hasidic and non-Hasidic residents - even after the perpetrator was identified as a resident of a town forty minutes away. One widely syndicated Associated Press article situated the previous week's bloodbath by informing millions of readers that "The expansion of Hasidic communities in New York's Hudson Valley, the Catskills and northern New Jersey has led to predictable sparring over new housing development and local political control. It has also led to flare-ups of rhetoric seen by some as antisemitic." In other words, the cause of bloodthirsty antisemitic violence is...Jews, living in a place! Sometimes, Jews who live in places even buy land on which to live. To be fair, there were many countries and centuries in which this Jews-owning-land monkey business was illegal, though twenty-first-century Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and northern New Jersey are sadly not among those enlightened locales. Predictably, this leads to sparring, and flare-ups. Who wouldn't express frustrations with municipal politics by hacking people with a machete?"

 - Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

[lolotr]

I have one to add if that's okay!

Eshel is an organization for Orthodox and Orthodox adjacent LGBTQ+ Jews and their loved ones! They have a lot of programming and support, including for people who grew up ortho and are no longer.

Jewish Resources (Assorted)

Since my last post seemed to be helpful to a lot of people, I thought I’d make another to share some additional resources. This list includes a bunch of stuff, meant for Jewish people in general. I would definitely encourage you to explore them! There’s a lot of useful stuff here. Goyim are welcome to reblog, just please be respectful if you’re adding tags or comments. Jewish Multiracial Network, an organization for multiracial Jewish families and Jews of Color Sefaria, a free virtual library of Jewish texts Sephardic Studies Digital Library Museum “The SSDC includes key books, archival documents, and audio recordings that illuminate the history, culture, literature, politics, customs, music, and cuisine of Sephardic Jews all expressed in their own language, Ladino.” (from their website) The SMQN, an organization for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews Keshet, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews JQY, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews with a focus on those in Orthodox communities  Queer Jews of Color Resource List (note: this list is way more than just resources, there’s a LOT there) JQ International: “JQ celebrates the lives of LGBTQ+ Jews and their allies by transforming Jewish communities and ensuring inclusion through community building, educational programs, and support and wellness services, promoting the healthy integration of LGBTQ+ and Jewish identities.” (from their website) Jews of Color Initiative, an organization dedicated to teaching about intersectionality in the Jewish community, focuses on research, philanthropy, field building, and community education Nonbinary Hebrew Project: It’s hard to describe, but they’re working to find/create/add suffixes that represent nonbinary genders in Hebrew. If you speak Hebrew/another gendered language, you might know what I mean about gendered suffixes. Jewish Mysticism Reading List  (These are related to our closed practices, goyim should NOT be practicing these things) Ritualwell (you can find prayers and blessings related to specific things here, I personally like that they have blessings related to gender identity)  Guimel, an LGBTQ+ support group for the Jewish Community in Mexico. The site is in Spanish. I’m not a native speaker, but I was still able to read a little bit of it.  SVARA: “SVARA’s mission is to empower queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study.” (From their website) TransTorah is definitely an older website, but there are still some miscellaneous pdfs and resources up on the “Resources” page. Jewish Disabilities Advocates: “The JFS Jewish Disabilities Advocates program was created to raise awareness and further inclusion of people with disabilities within Jewish organizations and the larger Jewish community.” (from their website) Jewish Food Society (recipes, have not spent a lot of time browsing here but maybe I should in the future) Jewish Blind & Disabled, an organization that operates mainly in providing accessible housing and living. Jewish Braille Institute International: “The JBI Library provides individuals who are blind, visually impaired, physically handicapped or reading disabled with books, magazines and special publications of Jewish and general interest in Audio, Large Print and Braille formats.” (from their website) Their services are free!)