First Fruits of the LGBT Movement

By Becky Silverstein for MyJewishLearning.com

Part of the observance of Shavuot, the traditional spring harvest holiday, is the celebration of the bikkurim, the first fruits of the year. In this post, Becky Silverstein honors those “first fruits” of the LGBT movement who have made so much progress possible.

The journey from Passover to Shavout is seven weeks. Counting each night, we count the steps towards revelation and still, suddenly, the time for receiving Torah is here! As I prepare for my own experience of revelation this year, here is what I expect to see at Sinai: I expect to see millions of Jews standing together. I expect to see cultural Jews standing next to Orthodox Jews standing next to our non-Jewish family members and friends. I expect to see families, of all different configurations, huddled together under one tallit or around a picnic blanket. I expect to see cisgender Jews and transgender Jews, Jews with matrilineal lineage and Jews by choice. I expect to see millions of people staring at the heavens, watching the thunder and lightning.

In addition to being the day of revelation at Sinai, Shavuot is also an agricultural celebration that marked the bringing of bikkurim, first fruits, to the Temple. I imagine a time of great joy filled with song and sunlight. I see households celebrating together and praying for a successful continuation of their harvest. Like my view of Sinai, these households come in all shapes, sizes, and configurations.

Despite our reenactment of revelation at Sinai, we are no longer there, nor does the Temple exist today. Where are the places we connect to G-d and to community? They are synagogues and day schools, community centers and summer camps. I see these places just as I envision Sinai and the Temple – rich in diversity of people, of family configuration, of experience. I see children of queer parents celebrating their B’nei Mitzvah. I see LGBTQ people serving as rabbis, educators, and lay leaders. I see teenagers coming out in their youth groups and feeling safe.

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Jewish Float Set for Gay Amsterdam Canal Parade

Joins First Moroccan Boat in Flamboyant Festival

By Cnaan Lipshiz in The Jewish Daily Forward

Amsterdam — (JTA) — Its maiden voyage is months away and will only take a couple of hours, but the Jewish boat of Amsterdam’s annual gay parade-on-the-canals is already making international waves.

On Monday, the Jewish boat got the thumbs up from the British actor Stephen Fry, who described it on Twitter as an “Ace event for LGBT Jews worldwide,” adding: “As one of each I wish I could be there!”

The Jewish boat for the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade 2014 is scheduled to hit the murky waters of Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht canal on Aug. 2. It was one of approximately 80 boats to win a March lottery ensuring its participation in the world-famous event, believed to be the world’s only aquatic pride parade. Other winners included the first boat for Moroccan gays.

The 18-year-old annual event draws hundreds of thousands of spectators who huddle along the canal to watch the decorated, themed vessels chart a west-east course through one of the Dutch capital’s main waterways. The Jewish boat, and an international Jewish LGBT conference that immediately precedes it, are being organized by a group called Exodays, whose board is made up of several young Jewish activists.

Even before it officially entered the parade, the Jewish boat was making a splash in the local media. Several Dutch dailies led their coverage of the lottery with news of the Jewish boat’s candidacy.

And it again made headlines in the Dutch media last month amid erroneous reports that the passenger list — which has not yet been made public — would include Onno Hoes, the Jewish, gay mayor of Maastricht and chairman of CIDI, the Dutch Jewish community’s main advocacy group focusing on Israel and anti-Semitism. Hoes congratulated the organizers on Twitter but said he would not be joining.

While Hoes is not on the boat, passengers include feature sports journalist Barbara Barend — another Dutch Jewish gay celebrity, who is a member of the CIDI board.


For more LGBT news, check out our      page.

Orthodox, gay, and the rest is private

By Mordechai Levovitz for The Times of Israel

First I’d like to congratulate and thank David Benkof for courageously being out of the closet and talking about his gay identity so publicly while still working in the Orthodox Jewish community. I hope David’s bravery and the corresponding compassionate communal reception to his article empower more LGBT Jews to come out of their respective closets. This is no small feat.

As Co-Executive Director of JQY, an organization that provides support for LGBT Youth in the Orthodox and Hassidic community, I have come to appreciate that there is no process that creates more impact, change, and understanding than LGBT Jews coming out to their friends, family and leaders. Statistics tell us that there is likely at least one LGBT person in every extended Frum (Orthodox) family. In an Orthodoxy where everyone personally knows someone who is LGBT, there is hope for more kindness, love and dignity extended to every Jew. Consequently, Benkof deserves credit for telling his story.

However, with respect to Benkof’s publicly divulging personal choices about his own sexual behavior, I am of two minds. On the one hand I have great respect for anyone who sacrifices that much to live up to his religious ideals. Self control and discipline in abiding to one’s understanding of halacha (Jewish law) are hallmarks of Orthodoxy. His dedication seems heroic. On the other hand his public declaration of personal celibacy strikes me as particularly out of place in Orthodox public discourse. It seems almost Un-tzniut (immodest) to need to tell the world about the sexual behaviors in which you do not engage. It reminded me of an incident that I experienced back in Orthodox Yeshiva when I was fifteen.

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A Double Commemoration

By GoGay for A Wider Bridge

As gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a special day in which we commemorate and remember the heavy price of hatred, violence and discrimination.

This is a day when the State of Israel remember the fallen Jews, and we as a community also gather to remember those who were killed against the background of gender and sexual identity. This day embodies the essence of being Israeli and simultaneously presents a challenge: should we separate between commemorating our Jewish and our LGBT people, or convene these two identity components together into one memory?



There was a great deal of talk about the place that gay people, in particular, took in the Nazi killing machine, from de-legitimization of homosexual relationships through sending LGBT people to labor and extermination camps. It is a dark, painful and repressed point in history.

Only in recent years has the general public opinion begun to recognize the importance of perpetuating the LGBT Holocaust by Nazi Germany, not without bitter arguments infected with harsh homophobia against the inclusion of the gay community in the commemoration. Memorials around the world that deal with the murder of LGBT people are vandalised from time to time, and there are many who think there’s no point mentioning the gay community as part of the victims of the Nazi death machine. Again, LGBT history is erased and suppressed, and our place is muted.

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