For transgender teens, Jewish rite of passage is a multi-layered transition

By Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman, JNS.org

A young woman is in the process of transitioning to be a young boy. While the rabbi and close family members are aware of the transition, the congregation is not.

Such was the scenario faced five years ago by Rabbi Eric Gurvis, senior rabbi of Temple Shalom in Newton, Mass. It was among the handful of bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies he has performed for transgender boys and girls.

“There were a lot of details involved, even in the language around the celebration.… [For] people who did not know [about the gender transition], we had no interest in making a spectacle of any kind that day, rather than just celebrating with the child,” recalls Gurvis.

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