By Paula Sinclair for Keshet

In what feels like eons before “Moppa” (the nickname given to Jeffrey Tambor’s transgender character on the Golden-Globe winning show Transparent), before Janet Mock and Laverne Cox helped to bring #GirlsLikeUs and transgender issues into the mainstream media, and before 17 million people huddled around their televisions as Bruce Jenner came out as transgender on a national platform, Barack Obama appointed Amanda Simpson, a transgender Jewish woman, to hold an executive branch position.

In 2010, Simpson became the first openly transgender woman appointed by any administration.

She held the position of Senior Technical Adviser in the Bureau of Industry and Security at the U.S. Department of Commerce until she moved to the Pentagon in 2013.

Simpson now works as the Executive Director of the U.S. Army Office of Energy Initiatives (OEI) where her work centers on renewable energy projects. Simpson is helping to pave new inroads to the army for transgender individuals.

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Hello and Happy Pride Month!

By Leana Jelen for  MyJewishLearning.com

[A digital rendering of this originally hand-written epistolary blog post can be found here.]

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A gay Chabadnik, lesbians wearing skullcaps and hipsters who never pray: Welcome to LGBTQ Birthright

An eclectic crowd took part in a recent trip to Israel. Discussions about the complexities of religious and sexual identity, and Tel Aviv's pride parade were all on the itinerary.

By Ofer Matan for Haaretz

Hanging out in the lobby of the Caesar Premier Jerusalem hotel on a recent Friday evening, Yochanan Hizkiyahu, 26, encountered an ultra-Orthodox man in typical black attire. The two looked at each other and struck up a conversation. Hizkiyahu, who identifies with the ultra-Orthodox Chabad sect and sports a beard, said he was in Israel on a Birthright junket – the 10-day all-expenses paid tour of Israel offered to young Diaspora Jews – and that afterward he intended to stay on in Jerusalem and attend a Chabad yeshiva.

“Would you like to pray with us in the morning? There are a few more Chabad people here,” the Haredi man said. Hizkiyahu said he would be glad for the opportunity, but that the following morning he was going to have a bar-mitzvah ceremony in the hotel. “Really?” the Haredi man asked, amazed. “Shall I come and honor you?”    

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Israel is the gayest country on earth

Yoni Leviatan, Blogger, The Times of Israel
When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the public discourse is very similar to American politics: roughly 80% of the people have made up their minds firmly in one direction or another, and all the chattering and social media blabbering is really just preaching to the congregation, while the remaining 20% mostly doesn’t care, or doesn’t have enough information to form an honest opinion.

This article is for that last 20% – the “undecideds” – who come with no predisposition toward either side, but are also not interested in learning a hundred years of history just to find out that both sides are right and wrong.

Therefore, I won’t talk about wars and terrorism or settlements and peace talks, because it’s all been hashed out before, and there’s no point in rehashing it in order to get to the truth, because it doesn’t exist. There is the Israeli truth and the Palestinian truth, and both believe theirs is the real and only truth.

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