Gender & Sexuality
Pronouns as a Jewish Value
Preferred Gender Pronouns: a phrase that confuses people who haven’t heard it before. To many, pronouns seem fixed. How could ...
A Queer Jew Looks Back on High School (and the Search for Role Models)
The very first person I came out to as a lesbian just introduced himself as a proud transman for the ...
Two Thirds A Jewish Woman
I am two thirds a woman. There are only three mitzvot uniquely, singularly, and expressly for women, making up the ...
Queer at a Jewish Boarding School in North Carolina
My journey of figuring out my sexual orientation began when I was 12 years old and living in a suburb of ...
A Soulless Figure, A Figureless Soul
My roommate came home yesterday with a story I’ve experienced myself too many times in too many different ways.She was ...
A Heralded Compromise That STILL Leaves Out Women
I’m one of those hard-to-categorize Jews, caught somewhere between the Conservative and Orthodox denominations. My practice leans Orthodox, my passion ...
Meet Lesléa Newman: Lesbian, Jewish, Writer
As part of Keshet’s partnership with the Jewish Women’s Archive, we are raising up the profiles and voices of queer ...
After Creating Change: Standing in Solidarity
This past weekend, the National LGBTQ Task Force convened its annual Creating Change Conference. Founded in 1998, the Task Force’s ...
Bat Mitzvah as Rite of Passage into Self and Community
My daughter Ktoret Ashira was born on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem in 2001. Two and a half years ago we ...
Personal/History: Teaching the Next Generation about the AIDS Crisis
I spent the evening of November 3rd weeping. I’d been teaching Tony Kushner’s Angels in America to my high school ...
Queer Jews of Color: We Belong
It is powerful to see yourself reflected in history, in a story, or even in a room. That power is ...
The Dividing Wall of Netanyahu’s Legacy
In the 1970s and 1980s, if someone referenced “The Wall” they were likely referring to the Berlin Wall (or the ...