Judaism
The LGBTQ Religious Archives Network features a digital exhibit entitled "Congregation Beit Simchat Torah" which highlights the rich history of largest LGBT+ synagogue currently in existence. Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, originally founded in 1972, is located in New York City and currently serves as a spiritual home for approximately 100,000 LGBT+ Jews and their straight allies.
When the synagogue came into being in the early seventies, the congregation simply called itself "the Gay Synagogue." For the first twenty years of the synagogue's existence, it didn't have a rabbi. The synagogue was unorthodox from its very inception, as the congregation wrote their own siddur (prayer book), designed to be affirming of homosexuality and, later in the congregation's history, to be gender neutral as well. In 1978, the year the second version of the Gay Synagogue's siddur was written, a prayer for gay liberation in the synagogue's liturgy. The prayer read:
Reebono Shel Olam: Behold our persecution and take up our cause. Hasten the day when our liberation will be complete. Fulfill Your promise to 'lift the oppressed from degradation.' Remove affliction and suffering from all gay people and let all homosexuals know that they are Your children.
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah is currently headed by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. Rabbi Kleinbaum has served as the congregation's leader since 1992, coming to the synagogue's helm during the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States - an epidemic that affected the synagogue profoundly, as 150 of its members passed away due to complications relating to AIDS.
Rabbi Kleinbaum's education and work has touched on many varieties of contemporary Judaism: Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, and Radical. Her activism has been similarly inclusive and intersectional, beginning as a student at Barnard College, where she organized demonstrations protesting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the school's investment in South Africa during the heyday of South African apartheid. She has subsequently fought for racial justice, gender equity, marriage equality, immigrant rights, and justice for Palestine. Her activism has been lauded by both of the Jewish weekly newspapers currently being issued, The Forward and Jewish Week.
Rabbis and Jewish scholars have created a wide range of rich resources and activist organizations for LGBT+ Jewish individuals everywhere. Rabbi Denise L. Eger, a former co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Rabbinic Network, contributed to the book Twice Blessed: On Being Gay, Lesbian, and Jewish, as did Rabbi Linda Holtzman, the founder of Tikkun Olam Chavurah, a social justice-oriented Jewish community. Queer theologians and activists Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub co-authored, in 1985, Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. Alpert herself wrote the classic text Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition, originally published in 1997. Dr. Evelyn Beck was responsible for penning what a pivotal, most seminal work discussing LGBT+ issues and Judaism, entitled Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, first published in 1982. Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell served as an editor for the 1997 work The Journey Continues: The Ma'yan Haggadah. Rabbi Lisa Edwards continues to often write articles for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. Perhaps in part due to the strong Jewish tradition of rigorous exegesis of holy writings, pardes, an extraordinary and beautiful body of written work exists documenting the transformation of Jewish thought on LGBT+ inclusion and affirmation.
