Judaism and Homosexuality: A Changing Conversation

By Tani Berkowitz
George Washington University

Once upon a time, I was an anomaly: a rabbi's son, USY regional board member, attendee of a Jewish high school and (gasp) openly gay. Then, it would have been difficult to name many people equally as committed to their Judaism who felt comfortable outwardly proclaiming both their identities as proud Jews and proud homosexuals. In only a few years, that number seems to have grown. In somewhat of a small-scale revolution, Jewish homosexuals seem to be more willing to claim their place in their local Jewish communities rather openly and proudly, right alongside their heterosexual counterparts. To be sure, there is a causal relationship between the increasingly successful advocacy of gay Jews and Jews friendly to gay rights work and the increasing number of Jews willing to be honest with themselves and the world about who they truly are. However, as a college student with a ringside seat to rapidly changing perspectives on homosexuality, I feel qualified to say that rising numbers of openly gay Jews are the product of a causal mechanism much more revolutionary than petitions and protests. Both in a narrowly Jewish sense and a broader American sense, homosexuality has become increasingly "normalized" to heterosexual audiences. Homosexual Jews look no different, practice and embrace their Judaism no differently and raise their children no differently than heterosexual Jews. It is this process of normalization that has been most effective in re-framing the discussion of homosexuals' place in a Jewish community and, in turn, allowing more homosexuals to embrace their Judaism openly in their true skin.

This is not to say that official calls for change had no effect on changing the way the Conservative Movement approached homosexuality, or that such action won't advance equal treatment of homosexuals in other movements. There is no doubt, however, that the biggest change to occur in recent years regarding this issue is a shift in the nature of the conversation itself; it is a change from seeing the issue in the abstract to feeling that, based on increased interaction with homosexuals living regular Jewish lives, this is a discussion of the most basic form of human treatment. To discuss Judaism and homosexuality, the theme of this publication, is to discuss people's lives and our opinion on the extent to which our Jewish communities will allow homosexuals to live them.

Does the subset of the Jewish population who happens to be gay find themselves today in an ideal world? Certainly not. Today's world, however, is drastically different from that which faced last generation's homosexuals. Rising numbers of openly gay members of the Jewish community, in my opinion, can be directly attributed to the changing nature of the conversation regarding their treatment. This shift, in particular, is a product of the larger Jewish community watching homosexuals go about their lives, reciting Kiddush, reading Torah, and lighting hanukkiyot no differently than anyone else. The lesson to take from this is not that anyone need stop fighting actively to create the world in which they want to live. Advocating for change in one's shul, community or country can only help to bring such a world sooner. What we can learn from the past few years, however, is that rapid progress is made when people simply live as they want to. I would argue that the gay men and women serving on the boards of Jewish day schools, synagogues, and federations, making Jewish homes and leading services on Shabbos, instilling in their children the love for the Jewish people they received from their parents – these are the factors on which change is based. By engaging in face-to-face dialogue with members of our community, using their daily lives as the means to an end and taking pride in who they are, gay Jews can usher in a change in the very nature of the dialogue regarding homosexuality and Judaism and eventually make the entire topic mundane and nothing unusual even worthy of discussion. And that is nothing short of revolutionary.

Tani Berkowitz is a USY alum from San Jose, California. He went on Nativ 26 and is currently studying history and political science at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

[Posted 5/23/09]