Alef: The NEXT Conversation

Be Fruitful and Multiply

By Danny Sharron

It’s been almost two years since I came out to my parents, and I still remember the first two things my mother said to me: “I love you” and “…what about grandchildren?”

I’m sure we’ve all heard this question from our parents in one form or another. Being young and Jewish in the post-Holocaust era comes with certain responsibilities, primarily to sustain our culture and help repopulate the Jewish race. After all, at the foundation of the Jewish faith is family – loyalty to the family you were born to, as well as the responsibility to build your own.

I was 20 years old when I went on a Birthright Israel trip. On my last night in Israel, the trip organizers rented out a club and invited about ten different groups to take part in the celebration. After fighting the masses to claim my first drink at the bar, I turned to face an overwhelmingly large and blinking proclamation projected onto screens throughout the club: MAKE JEWISH BABIES.

Coming to terms with my sexuality was hard enough without the added strain of procreation. This glaring imperative made me feel totally inadequate. If I’m gay and can’t make babies, then how do I fit into the Jewish faith?

It has been four years since my trip to Israel, and with each year that has passed the pressure to build a family has only increased. I’m not ready to get married or raise children any time soon, but the question remains: When I do want these things, when I’m ready to give my mother the grandchildren she so desires, what will happen? Will I find a surrogate? Will I adopt? And if I do adopt (and bring my generational line to an abrupt halt), what repercussions will this have on raising my child as a Jew? Will my child feel as Jewish as I do, even if the history and tradition aren’t in his or her blood?

I don’t have the answers to these questions and I don’t know if anyone does. For the first time, the politics of homosexuality are being brought to the forefront of our collective conscience. It is our generation that will define how homosexuality is ultimately incorporated into both American and Jewish culture, and I want to be proud of the choices I make. Although I once felt shamed and alienated by my grim reproductive prospects, I have a new-found pride in my identity. I am a gay man of the Jewish faith, and I will venture to set an admirable precedent for the future generations of gay Jews to come.

Photo by SantaRosa OLD SKOOL, licensed under Creative Commons.

Read more posts from the Gay Pride issue.

Tags: babies, birthright israel, coming out, gay

Posted by Sarah, Tuesday, June 1st, 2010, 2:25 pm, Gay Pride.