Queer Jewish Women Need to Create Their Own Spaces

By A.J. Campbell, The Jewish Daily Forward

In a recent piece on The Sisterhood, J.E. Reich writes that there is a lack of safe spaces for queer Jewish women particularly in New York City. She attributes this to silence of the mainstream community to create space for us. I disagree with the idea that we need Jewish organizations to open the door to us.

We need to open our own doors.

Reich makes the point that the mainstream Jewish organization are in need of better tools and resources for LGBTQ inclusion. I don’t believe that change will happen even with the best toolbox. If you want to feel included in an organization, you have to join it. Queer Jewish women need to show up and keep showing up. We can’t wait for the doors to be opened, we have to go out and open them.

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Rachel Timoner succeeds Andy Bachman as rabbi at Brooklyn congregation

From The Times of Israel

Rachel Timoner, a married lesbian mother of two, was named senior rabbi of Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim.

Timoner, the assistant rabbi at the Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, will replace the eminent Rabbi Andy Bachman as head of the Reform synagogue, the daily Forward reported. She was the unanimous choice of the search committee, according to the Forward. Her appointment must be approved at a special membership meeting.

Bachman, a perennial presence on “top rabbis” lists, announced last March that he would be stepping down to pursue helping the general community on broader issues such as poverty, hunger and homelessness. He has served Beth Elohim, a large congregation in the Park Slope neighborhood, since 2006; his contract runs out at the end of June.

Timoner, a Miami native, has won awards for community service and her work with LGBT youth. She was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where she was a Wexner graduate fellow. She has a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

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Reform rabbis gather in Philadelphia to appoint first openly gay president

From newsworks.org

The Central Conference of American Rabbis is the rabbinical arm of the Reform Judaism movement. On Sunday, Philadelphia will host its 126th annual convention, where Rabbi Denise Eger will become the organization's first openly gay president. A longtime leader in the LGBT community and an advocate for  human rights, she is one of the first openly gay leaders of any major religious organization.

At the convention CCAR also will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its resolution calling for the ordination of gay Reform rabbis, a landmark in its long history at the forefront of advancing LGBT and human rights that includes a 1977 resolution calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality and an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Additionally, the CCAR will release Mishkan HaNefesh, a new, more inclusive prayer book for the high holidays, as well as a new "rabbi's manual," which adopts new language that no longer differentiates or privileges straight weddings over gay weddings.

Eger talked about her aspirations for the Reform movement with WHYY's Kimberly Haas.

Listen:

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2015 LGBT Media Awards: Full List of Winners

Yanir Dekel for The Times of Israel

On Thursday night, community members, friends and supporters attended the 2nd Annual Pride Media awards ceremony, held at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque to celebrate and honor the artists and works that encouraged positive LGBT visibility in the media in 2014.

Gal Uchovsky, Amir Fay Guttman, Ivri Lider, Talula Bonet, Mickiyagi, Rose Fostanes and cast members of the new hit series A Good Family were among the celebrity guests and winners. Organizers of the annual ceremony hope that this newly-formed tradition will encourage Israeli media to initiate LGBT content with fair representation that will influence Israeli society.

Here’s the full winners list:

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Fighting Anti-Gay Hate on Purim

By Barney Frank for The Jewish Daily Forward

The ancient rabbi Hillel famously asked: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” I feel it is important to answer the first two questions in the way Hillel hoped—that we must stand up for both ourselves and for others. (After 40 years as a legislator, my answer to the third is “as soon as we have the votes.”)

On Purim, Jews remember the oppression we faced and overcame in ancient Persia and throughout our history. With Hillel’s questions in mind, we must rededicate ourselves to combating anti-Semitism throughout the world and to combating the oppression of others.

Today one of the most important ways to combat the oppression of others is to work against the terrible wave of homophobia that is oppressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in several African countries. While this prejudice is powerful, we should not paint the whole continent with this brush. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela demonstrated his unsurpassed commitment to defending human rights for all by including in the South African constitution recognition of the right of LGBT people to be free from discrimination. But sadly, Mandela’s example is not always honored.
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For more information, recipes and great ideas for Purim, check out Jvillage's Purim Holiday Kit.

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