A Jewish Person Binds Their Chest

By Talia BarNoy September 1, 2022

“I stood there, in my father’s closet, looking up at the cracked white paint of the ceiling, hoping God would hear that I was man, woman, and everything too.”

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Hillel Isn’t Homophobic – It’s My Home

By Anonymous April 14, 2017

When I first came to Boston University in the fall of 2014, I split my time about evenly between two places – the Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Activism (CGSA), home to all the LGBT-centric groups on campus, and BU Hillel, the center of Jewish life. But as time went by, I gravitated more and…

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What we can learn from the RCA and the URJ

By Amram Altzman November 15, 2015

On Oct. 30, mainstream Orthodox leaders in the Rabbinical Council of America confirmed once again that women who receive the same training and jobs as men still are not — and never will be — equal to men. Six days later, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a landmark resolution on the inclusion of transgender individuals…

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Reclaiming “off the derekh:” A High Holidays meditation

By Amram Altzman September 16, 2015

As a child, my rabbis and Judaic studies teachers cautioned me against straying “off the derekh,” which almost literally translates to off of the Orthodox straight-and-narrow. If we did, though, then the High Holidays were a time when we could return to once again being on the straight, singular path that Orthodoxy provided. As a…

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Do Jews need to worry about the RFRA?

By Jackson Richman June 24, 2015

Does a kosher bakery have the right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for an intermarried couple? If the bakery is in Indiana, the answer might be yes. Indiana’s passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in March caused an uproar, especially among LGBTQ rights activists, who argued that it could encourage discrimination…

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Dear Orthodox Leaders: LGBTQ Jews Don’t Need Your Sympathies

By Amram Altzman May 4, 2015

The Shabbat of Parashat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim— the Torah portion that was read in many synagogues this past Saturday morning — is always a painful one for me and many other queer Jews. The verses it contains concerning the prohibition of male homosexuality have long been used as justification for excluding queer people from religious life….

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The Israeli Government Isn’t Pinkwashing — We Are

By Amram Altzman June 18, 2014

The idea of “pinkwashing” is not new. The concept is defined as such: the Israeli government, having to deal with the violation of human rights in the Occupied Territories, uses its record on LGBTQ inclusion (for example, its military has never had a Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell policy, unlike some countries we know) to obscure…

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Let’s Queer the Jewish Legal Tradition

By Amram Altzman December 16, 2013

I had the honor of speaking at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance’s Voices of Change conference last week, where I, only for a day, became a high school student once again and spoke on a panel about navigating relationships and sexuality in high school as a feminist. While speaking, the topic of Shemirut Negi’ah, or…

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Queering the Liturgy: To Adjust or to Search?

By Jonathan Katz December 12, 2013

It is a problem that I and many other queer Jewish students face: as religious folk, we want to pray. But how do we – gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans*, queer, and other identities across the “rainbow ” – connect with a liturgy that is often seen as heteronormative, cis-normative, and well, “straight”? Some say, “the…

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On the Queer-Jewish-Teenager Experience (or, Corollary to Last Week’s Article)

By Amram Altzman November 25, 2013

I wrote last week about how I grew up in the Modern Orthodox world, but now feel that, in terms of practice, I identify as part of the vast, grey area between Modern Orthodoxy and Traditional Conservatism, and how I, along with peers from both my religious right and left, can build upon that vast,…

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An Open Letter to Young Conservative Jews

By Amram Altzman November 14, 2013

Dear Young Conservative Jews who are upset with your movement and feel abandoned, fear the death of it, or are trying to somehow assign blame for the imminent death of your movement: I understand your problem. Really, I do. You see, I grew up in a family that identified as “stalwartly left-wing Modern Orthodox” at…

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Pew Survey Conversation (Part 3)

By Derek M. Kwait October 30, 2013

Part 3 in a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. 7.      What are your reactions to survey respondents’ answers to “What does it mean to be Jewish”? What creates Jewish meaning for you? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: These questions pertain to areas of great ambiguity. I wouldn’t…

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Meet Steve, Sarah, Eliana, and Jonathan.

Pew Survey Conversation (Part 2)

By Derek M. Kwait October 29, 2013

Part 2 of a 3 part series. Part 1 is here. 4.      Are the survey’s categories of denomination a useful marker of determining true religious affiliation/practice in today’s Jewish world? Dr. Steven M. Cohen, sociologist: Yes. Denominational identities can be meaningful for people as many are strongly attached to Orthodoxy, Conservatism, Reform, and Reconstructionism. But…

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Meet Steve, Sarah, Eliana, and Jonathan.

An Inter-Everything Conversation About the Pew Survey

By Derek M. Kwait October 28, 2013

Part 1 in a 3 part series.   We might just be the last Jewish organization to respond to the big bad Pew Survey and we’re fine with that. It seems like every response so far is other people telling us what how we need to feel about it, whether we should be scared,  take…

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Conservative Jews Worried Gay Weddings Might Be… Too Equal?

By John Propper September 20, 2012

Those of you who have paid attention to the Conservative Judaism movement in recent months may recall that it is officially, like, so totally inclusive now. As JTA reported when the news broke: “The Conservative movement – affirming that same-sex marriages have ‘the same sense of holiness and joy as that expressed in heterosexual marriages’ — last…

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