Transforming Our World

Rabbi Kleinbaum’s background of political activism helped the synagogue begin to articulate its commitment to social justice, advance its goal of LGBTQ visibility in Jewish life, and transform the American religious landscape.

CBST’s Origins as an Activist Community/ CBST and the LGBT Rights Movement

The LGBT Pride march (originally the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade), Soviet Jewry demonstrations, pen pals for gay Jews around the world, the CBST Jewish Affairs Committee and Social Action Committee, and participation in the 1975 Gay Activist Alliance form, gained media coverage.

New York City was the epicenter of both the gay rights movement and the AIDS crisis.  CBST provided leadership and meeting space, and its members played key roles, founding LGBT legal and advocacy organizations, serving as volunteers, board members, and professional staff.

• 1978 Bar Association for Human Rights
• 1979 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
• Senior Action in Gay Environment (SAGE)
• NYC Gay Men’s Chorus
• 1983 LGBT Center (calling 200 people, asking $1000 from each, a CBST leader raised $200,000 in one week to purchase the city-owned Food and Maritime High School on West 13^th Street)

Domestic Partnership Bill / Litigation and Legislation

In 1993, Rabbi Kleinbaum addressed an interfaith service the day before the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Equal Rights and Liberation. She emerged as a national leader, stressing CBST’s obligations beyond its immediate community to other oppressed and disenfranchised populations.

Changing the Jewish Community

CBST members who came from deeply connected Jewish backgrounds have worked to move the mainstream Jewish community toward greater acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people. 

In 1975, the Reform Movement accepted a gay synagogue into its national union.

In 1980, visitors were drawn to CBST’s booth at the West Side Jewish Peoplehood Week Fair, and then attended services.

Yet in 1982, participation of an openly gay organization in the Fair was denied.

The World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jewish Organizations

In the wake of the 1975 UN declaration equating Zionism with racism, many American Jews experienced a new sense of vulnerability. 

In 1976, the World Congress of GLBT Jewish Organizations was established. Its 1977 conference, organized and hosted by CBST, was a milestone international event.

The JNF Forest

By 1978, CBST’s annual Tu Bish’vat drive had raised funds to plant one thousand trees in Israel as a major part of an International Conference of Gay Jews grove.  

In 1979 the Israeli Society for the Protection of Personal Rights scheduled an international conference to be followed by a dedication ceremony at the grove in Israel.

When the Ultra-Orthodox rabbinate threatened to revoke the kashrut certification of the hosting kibbutz and its factory, the conference was immediately relocated to Tel Aviv for this first-ever public gay rights demonstration in Israel.

JNF cancelled the grove’s dedication, refusing to install a plaque that included the words gay and lesbian. At New York’s JNF office, there was even discussion of returning the money.

For thirteen years, a blank plaque served as a symbol that the gay community was being silenced until the dispute was resolved in 1992 and the proper plaque was installed.

Salute to Israel Parade

In 1993, Orthodox groups pressured American Zionist Youth Foundation (AZYF) to ban CBST from the annual Salute to Israel Parade, New York City’s major Jewish visibility event.

ARZA, the Reform Movement’s Zionist association invited CBST to march with a joint banner, but the controversy escalated.

CBST and the Movements

Since the 1970s CBST members closely monitored American Jewish Movements, advocating for progress in their positions and attitudes toward LGBT people.

By the late 1980s, outreach was stepped up. In 1986 a network of rabbis and rabbinical students held a secret conference. A few years later twenty-nine North American lesbian and gay rabbis signed a statement (some anonymously), sent to every major Jewish organization and periodical calling on all religious movements to affirm their right to function as rabbis while being fully out of the closet.

It would be a rocky road for gay and lesbian students, professionally and emotionally. With support from CBST and Rabbi Kleinbaum, pressure for change continued in the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Movements.