Archive for February 25th, 2009

by Sharon Udasin, Staff Writer

When Caryn Aviv became pregnant with her daughter three years ago, she immediately decided that it was time to go “shul shopping” and began to scour Denver for a place where she would be comfortable as a Conservative-raised, openly gay, professional mom.

She instinctively tried out her local Conservative shul, where it seemed fine for her to show up alone and visibly pregnant — as long as she left any mention of her then girlfriend at home.

“It was painful to see other people’s discomfort with who I was, and not ‘get it,’” she said.

Unable to tolerate a synagogue where she couldn’t be true to herself, Aviv joined a Reconstructionist shul whose board president was openly lesbian and had recently adopted a Guatemalan boy.

“It was such a no-brainer and totally welcoming,” she said. “Every measure of inclusion and diversity actually fit how she lives her life.”

Aviv, the Posen lecturer in secular Jewish culture for the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, is the co-author of a newly released synagogue survey on “Diversity and LGBT Inclusion,” which she presented at a meeting of more than 50 Jewish community leaders, professors and congregants — many of them clad in rainbow-patterned yarmulkes — at The JCC in Manhattan last weekend. While large numbers of North American Jewish congregations say they want to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews in their communities, this verbal support largely fails to translate into active welcome, Aviv and her team reported. Continue reading…