For Orthodox Lesbians, A Home Online

Israeli group Bat Kol to launch English website as ‘life-net’ for those struggling with acceptance.

Talya Lev, left, and Sarah Weil.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Sharon Udasin, Staff Writer

Like so many newly religious American immigrants to Israel, 20-year-old Sarah Weil immersed herself in Torah studies and the intricacies of Jewish law, learning intently with the strictest chasidic rebbetzins in various Jerusalem seminaries.

“I desperately wanted to keep Torah and mitzvot and be in the Orthodox world,” said Weil, who made aliyah in 2005.

There was only one problem — no matter how many times she tried to talk herself out of it, Weil, now 26, knew that she was gay, and that homosexuality is considered an abomination in the eyes of many in the Orthodox community.

“I would pray every single day that God would make me ‘normal’ and would direct my attraction toward men,” she told The Jewish Week. Being gay and being religious seemed to Weil like two lines that would never intersect. Being in a secret relationship with another American olah, Talya Lev, only complicated things.

As the two struggled in the closet, they found, seemingly out of the blue, a lifeline. Through a friend, they discovered a fledgling organization called Bat Kol, the only group in Israel devoted to the needs of religious lesbians.

Weil and Lev dove into volunteer work for Bat Kol (Hebrew for “Daughter of a Voice” or “Small Voice”), doing everything from lobbying for gay rights to partaking in the group’s many social and support structures. Eventually they began to play lead roles at the organization.

Now, with the help of a grant from a major Jewish incubator, Weil and Levy are preparing to launch an English version of the Bat Kol website, which up to now has only been in Hebrew. When it is completed in the next few months, the new site will enable religious lesbians here and around the world to tap into Bat Kol’s rich body of resources — a kind of comforting shoulder to lean on in cyberspace — as they struggle for acceptance and try to negotiate two vastly different worlds.

For religious lesbians, Weil said, the new English site will be what she calls a “life-net,” a cross between a lifeline and a safety net.

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, spiritual leader at New York’s LGBT synagogue, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, said that Bat Kol would’ve been “enormously helpful” when she was growing up as an Orthodox — yet gay — teenager at The Frisch School in Bergen County in the late ’70s.

“The plague for Jewish lesbians is invisibility,” Rabbi Kleinbaum said. “Bat Kol is a wonderful organization. I have known of them for many years. I myself counsel many people who are struggling with issues of Jewish religious identity and being gay. It’s essential that there be a visible presence of organizations like Bat Kol. Visibility is the most important thing to combat the loneliness that so many Jewish lesbians feel.”  Continue reading…

[[This blog post was originally written for Jewlicious.com]].

(I know I live in New York, but today I need to comment on an issue surfacing across the Atlantic Ocean — in the United Kingdom.)

If a new bill passes next month in the United Kingdom, British same-sex couples will soon be crushing glasses and signing ketubahs with the official blessings of their rabbis and families.

A group of Liberal Jewish rabbis and Anglican ministers have come together in favor of an amendment to the country’s 2010 Equality Bill, which would allow same-sex civil partnerships to take place in British synagogues and other religious institutions, writes Jessica Elgot, a reporter at The Jewish Chronicle in London. The Equality Bill, she continues, will be up for debate in the House of Lords next month, and currently has the support of Liberal Jews, Unitarians and Quakers. You can read through Parliament’s discussion of the bill here, by scrolling down to the paragraph just above sub-head “25 Jan 2010 : Column 1199.”

“[The amendment's] intention is to remove the prohibition against civil partnerships taking place in religious buildings,” the document reads. “I shall repeat that: it is to remove the prohibition against civil partnerships taking place in religious organisations. It is a straightforward amendment. It does not seek to force religious institutions to host civil partnerships and I would not intend it to. It simply has to be a matter for them to decide whether or not they wish to do so.”

As in most of the United States, gay marriages are still not recognized by law in the United Kingdom. But in Britain, where church is not separate from state, the government can take this prohibition one step further. Civil unions may be permitted throughout the country, but at the moment, these same-sex partnerships cannot occur within the boundaries of a house of worship.  That’s right, it’s currently illegal for a rabbi to unite two men or two women under a chuppah in England.

And now, at the behest of some forward-thinking Quakers, the House of Lords is aiming to repeal this ban.

While same-sex marriages are only legal in a few select states here in America, all religious institutions have the power to conduct same-sex civil unions if they so choose, and many have been doing so for quite some time. Synagogues all over the US perform same-sex marriages, like Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, where marriages went from being not recognized by law, to being recognized, to now unfortunately not being recognized by law once again. In New York, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah performs many marriage ceremonies, even though gay marriage has never ever yet been legal in New York State. Even in Israel, where laws are strongly influenced by an Orthodox rabbinate, is doing a very good job welcoming theLGBT community into its fold.

Although the laws should certainly be changed to make same-sex marriage legal both here and in the United Kingdom, a religious institution should always be a place of refuge for every congregant it serves — no matterwhat the law says.  I hope that when the House of Lords takes this bill to the floor next month, the British government does decide to allow for marriages to occur within the synagogues, whether or not they are officially recognized by the country.

And in yet another progressive move for Britain, Schools Secretary Ed Balls recently decided that all secondary schools, including parochial schools, will be forced to teach “full, broad, balanced curriculum on sex and relationship education” — which includes topics like sexually-transmitted diseases, contraception, pregnancy, abortion and homosexuality, The Telegraph reported today. This means that religious schools — even Orthodox Jewish schools — will need to address topics like civil unions and same-sex parenting without any homophobia whatsoever.

I wonder how Britain’s haredi communities are going to respond to this…

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Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

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I also posted a lengthy comment in response to Jessica Elgot’s article here, on The Jewish Chronicle’s Web site.

From Birthright To The Fringe Festival

Playwright Jason Mitchell Kahn: Sexuality and spirituality.

by Sharon Udasin

At this year’s New York International Fringe Film Festival, step into the Hell’s Kitchen apartment of three gay roommates — Seth, Ashley and Josh, a young Jewish writer. “The Boys Upstairs,” by Jewish playwright Jason Mitchell Kahn, explores the love lives, thrills and disappointments of the close-knit trio. Kahn adds a personal touch to the show, rooting Josh’s story in his own personal experiences as a gay Jewish writer in New York.

Kahn gained attention for his 2006 play “The Red Box,” which portrays the horrific yet largely unknown stories of homosexuals in the Holocaust. Split apart from his partner, the Jewish protagonist must wear both a yellow star and a pink triangle, alienating him from both the Jewish and gay communities at the concentration camp. 

In between his work on the two plays, Kahn attended multiple trips to Auschwitz and took a Birthright Israel NEXT Mini Master’s course here in New York.

“My sexuality led me to my spirituality,” he said, explaining that only after writing “The Red Box” did he become fascinated with his Jewish identity. “The trips came after,” Kahn said. “I felt so much more a part of the Jewish’s community and attached.”

“The Boys Upstairs” has its final Fringe Festival performances on Thursday, Aug. 27, at 5 p.m., or Friday, Aug. 28, at 7 p.m., at the Soho Playhouse on 15 Vandam St. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit www.theboysupstairs.info. Read the original article here.