Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Chanukah in June
By Jay Michaelson
Alef editor’s note: An earlier version of this article appeared in The Forward on December 10, 2008.
Chanukah in June makes about as much sense as Christmas in July. But the Festival of Lights does have something in common with Pride Month: coming out. Yes, Chanukah is a “coming out” holiday, in both its origins and its contemporary forms.
First, the Chanukah story is, in large part, a story of coming out — not in terms of sexuality, of course, but more generally, it’s about being open and honest about oneself and one’s values, and demanding that difference be accommodated. The circumstances that led to the Maccabean revolt were not so much single acts of oppression as they were a slow, insidious process of erasure. Some of that process was imposed by the Syrian-Greek occupiers of Palestine, but some, let’s remember, was embraced by Hellenizing Jews. As a means of assimilation, Jews semi-voluntarily took on Greek names and Greek customs, and began regarding Jewish worship as one option among many.
The Maccabees – in a part of the Chanukah story they don’t teach you in Sunday school – rebelled against this assimilation, even forcibly circumcising baby boys against the wishes of the children’s parents. Hardly a model of religious tolerance, but definitely a form of coming out. They didn’t demand equal treatment of Hellenizers and non-Hellenizers; they demanded that Jews be acknowledged as different.
Today, Chanukah plays an oddly similar role. Every December, we are inundated with images of Christmas: endless sleighs and trees and Santas and the rest. Everyone’s meant to get into the spirit of the “holidays.” Which is why, as Kyle Broslovsky of Comedy Central’s animated series “South Park” put it, it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas. This is why celebrating Chanukah is like coming out: it’s about admitting difference, recognizing that one is not the same as everyone else and, hopefully, celebrating the unique gifts that being different offers.
Sometimes people ask why we need Gay Pride Month, and Pride parades. Well, the answer is simple: because coming out is not easy. Here, my own story may be instructive. I sort of knew I was gay at 18, definitely knew at 23, but didn’t come out until, at age 30, a wonderful woman I had been dating finally dumped me (good for her!) and I realized I couldn’t “make it work” as a bisexual. What took me so long? I’m an intelligent, reasonably sensitive, and courageous guy. Why did I spend 10 years hating myself, repressing my deepest desires, and failing to embrace the gifts of emotional and sexual fulfillment?
Because “coming out,” which sounds so simple, is really very hard. I’m not saying I had the courage of the Maccabees, or the drag-queen heroes at Stonewall whose rebellion Pride Month commemorates. But when I look back on my own coming out process, I’m amazed I did it at all. In the hope that my story can inspire you to come out in whatever way can help you lead your life – sexually, religiously, emotionally, whatever – I want to share a few of the specific reasons coming out was so hard, and yet so worthwhile in retrospect.
First, I didn’t know what I was missing. I had no idea how dead I was inside, how emotionally cut off I was from other people or what love was really about. My friends will tell you: I was a different person entirely — more sarcastic, more insular, less open, less honest. Try it yourself: Lie to everybody you know about what’s most important to you, and see what happens. And if you’ve been doing it yourself, please take the leap of faith. It’s way, way better on this side of the chasm. Trust me.
Oh, and by the way, “Hate the sin, love the sinner” doesn’t work. Sexual identity, like religious identity, isn’t some part-time hobby. If you hate the sin, you’re going to end up hating yourself.
Second, and relatedly, I thought that coming out would destroy everything I valued. I thought it would end my Jewish religious life, end my chances at normalcy, and alienate me from family and friends. I was wrong on all counts. My spiritual and religious life blossomed once I stopped hating God for making me gay. I was able to start thinking about having a real life, a family, and a career only after I stopped having fake ones. And my being honest about myself has enabled me to forge friendships that are deeper than I had ever imagined back in the closet. (“Closet” is probably too cozy a word; “tomb” is better.)
I have also watched my family members evolve in their own views and come not only to accept my sexuality but also to embrace it — a tall order, to be sure, especially as they themselves still encounter homophobia from their friends. But what mother doesn’t want her son to be happy? Eventually, we learn that love, happiness, justice, and holiness are all that matter — and if homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality leads to those things, baruch hashem.
Finally, I think it took me so long to come out because I lacked the kind of community and values that would have given me the courage I needed to do so. All my friends and family members were straight, and the gay world I saw on TV looked superficial, hypersexual, and weird. It was only once I came out that I realized sexuality is about more than having sex, and that being queer, like being Jewish, is a blessing. In an ideal world, we all grow up with religious and personal role models. But because few GLBT people grow up in gay families, coming out can be lonely, terrifying, and embarrassing.
Yet it is also the Jewish thing to do. It may be hard to be a Jew on Christmas, but it’s by daring to do so that we’ve survived the past 3,000 years and created a culture and religion worth preserving. Well before the Maccabees, the very first Jew, Abraham, was told by God to come out: to get out of his father’s house, follow his own spiritual path and cross over to the other side of the river. From this act, our nation and language get the name Ivri — “Hebrew” — the one who crosses over. And from Abraham’s repeated answers to God’s queries we get the consummate statement of self-exposure: Hineni, Here I am.
The lessons of coming out are Jewish lessons. Just like repressed gay people, repressed Jews don’t know how damaging it is to closet our religious and cultural selves; how invigorating it is to be open, honest, and celebratory about who we are; or how empowering it is to be part of a community of boundary-crossers. So, my advice for celebrating Chanukah in June? Stop repressing and stop equivocating. Whatever closet you’re hiding in, whether it’s sexual, religious, professional, cultural, or just plain dull and repressive — come out, please, wherever you are.
Jay Michaelson is executive director of Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture & Spirituality.
Photo by Brymo, licensed under Creative Commons.
Orthodox and Gay: Now What?
By Jayson Littman
Over the past 10 years, more and more Orthodox Jews have come out of the closet and identified as gay. The press has heavily covered the trend, and as I write this, I wonder what’s left to write about someone like me who was raised as an Orthodox Jew and is now living an openly gay life. Ever since the 2001 release of Trembling Before G-d, a documentary about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality and their faith, I’ve looked back at my own journey and those of my friends who have shared similar experiences. We’ve all taken unique paths.
While some modern Orthodox Jewish communities have come to accept homosexuality, more stringent Orthodox communities are struggling to find ways to accept their newly out gay members. This forces many gay Orthodox Jews to choose between their religious and sexual identities. Most choose to assimilate into the welcoming gay community, but at the expense of leaving their Jewish identity behind.
The phenomenon of out gay frum-from-births (gFFBs) is still rather new, and many of us are still trying to find where we fit into the Jewish community at large. We wish to remain committed to the Jewish community and its future, yet, with a community still so small and only a few shuls that unconditionally and openly accept us, we are obligated to find other welcoming environments – perhaps at the cost of our identity as frum Jews.
The Jewish people have become more diverse with the increase of open gFFBs in the community. Whether or not we are accepted amongst family and friends, many gFFBs are staying faithful to their Jewish practice. The Orthodox community now needs to practice the idea of inclusion. Out gFFBs need to feel included within the community in order for us to stay within the confines of our upbringing.
Many Jewish organizations are committed to preventing the assimilation of the Jewish people, yet it’s almost ironic that many gay Jews actually want to marry within their own religion, but finding a suitable same-sex Jewish mate is often difficult (finding someone committed to Judaism is even more difficult).
Most of the gFFBs in my circle of friends who don’t practice Judaism the way we were raised do so more out of practicality rather than rebelliousness. We tend to spend Shabbats and holidays together in our kosher homes, but travel to each other in our small, but spread out community across Manhattan. While many straight Orthodox Jews will flock to the Upper West Side of Manhattan to be around other modern Orthodox Jews, gFFBs will migrate towards the gay areas of Manhattan such as Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen and ensure their homes remain kosher in these non-Orthodox areas of the city.
Another never-has-this-happened-before moment occurred when my straight Orthodox friends started setting me up with the other “gay Jewish guys” they know. I particularly enjoy when I respond by saying “Oh, I already know him,” because it reminds me of the very same reasoning I would use when I was still in the closet and was set up with girls I already knew.
Every month, there is a meeting at the JCC on the Upper West Side for frum or formerly frum gay young people aged 18-30. It’s an amazing sight to see frum Jews from backgrounds including: chabad, yeshivishe, modern orthodox, black hat, and Jewish day schoolers, all in the same room – and agreeing on issues! I can’t imagine Jews from these varied demographics ever getting together in a heterosexual setting.
So as this new decade begins and gFFBs start to join the Jewish community at large, it’s important for us all to know that we are no longer Trembling and we are no longer in the closet. We are confident in both our Jewish and sexual identities and will remain committed to the Jewish people and community. We don’t feel a need to continuously argue over biblical and halachic verses, because no matter what the outcome of those debates are, we will still remain both Jewish and gay. So now what?
Jayson Littman is the founder of He’bro, an organization that creates events for gay Jews in New York City. For more information, please go to www.hebro.org or contact Jayson at Jayson@hebro.org.
Read more posts from the Gay Pride issue.
Photo by intrepidblue, licensed under Creative Commons.
An Unorthodox Coming Out Story
By Jessica Annabelle
Coming out can bring out a wide range of emotions – liberating, difficult, scary, fun, slow, sudden, not actually surprising to everyone but you, political, and super confusing.
For example, the first time I had a crush on a girl was super confusing. Rachel was, like myself, a nice Jewish girl and she happened to sit next to me in Modern Lit class. The important thing to know about Rachel though, was not only that she sat next to me, but that she often wore low cut and loose fitting shirts and sometimes they fell forward and I could see her boobs.
It was the best thing ever.
Simultaneously, it was weird and inexplicable and obviously didn’t mean anything. I had already been through a handful of boyfriends, so I was completely certain having a crush on Rachel did not mean I was a lesbian. On the contrary, I decided having a crush on Rachel meant I was totally normal, because she was hot and all of my guy friends had crushes on her. This weird thing, I decided, had everything to do with her shirts being irresistibly sexy and nothing at all to do with me.
I had successfully convinced myself I was into shirts, not girls. Several years later when I went on my first date with a girl, I explained to the few friends I told that I just “really liked her piercings.” And about a year after that, when I first slept with a girl, I realized that these sorts of explanations were probably no longer going to work.
Because I wasn’t sure how to tell my family and friends from home that I wasn’t straight anymore, after 18 years of evidence to the contrary, the first people I talked to about these new experiences and the questions they raised were my college friends at Hillel. When I tell other people in the LGBTQ community that the first place I came out was in my religious community, their reactions tend to range from surprise to disbelief. For many of my queer friends, religion is dangerous terrain, full of enemy soldiers laying in wait to attack with cures for homosexuality and promises of an eternity spent unloved. This hostile environment is not exclusive to Evangelical Christianity, but can materialize in the most liberal of churches, in small talk with a fellow member of the tribe, or in the mosque. I was blessed with an entirely different experience.
For me, Hillel was a safe place (looking back, even the safest place) to come out because my friends there were also family. We enjoyed each others company and conversation, but in addition to that, we were Jewish. There was a bond between us that could not be broken, and I held on tightly to that as I reinvented myself.
As I sorted through the new questions that arose with each of my new experiences with girls – like, was I interested in women romantically as well as physically? Is this whole thing really worth potentially upsetting my poor mother? And, am I allowed to call myself “queer” when most of my relationships until now have been with men? – I started to rely more and more on the ritual of Shabbat. Once a week, Shabbat allowed me to take a deep breath and set aside the uncertainties. For one day, I focused my energy on celebrating the answers I had found and appreciating the community that sustained me.
It’s been about a year since I first admitted to my best friend and fellow Hillel board member that I might be kind of into girls as well as guys. I’m definitely queer and Jewish and while my mother is not yet able to say LGBTQ three times fast, she has a pretty solid understanding of a few other new terms, including bisexual, Prop 8, partner, and dental dam.
One last thing – Rachel came out about six months ago.
Photo by Made Underground, licensed under Creative Commons.
Middle School Fantasies
By Amir Levi
During 7th grade, everyone was having their bar and bat-mitzvahs. I remember before each party, as I would be putting on the same suit I wore to every one, I would ask myself, ‘Will this be the party where he notices me and asks me to dance?’. A complete wallflower and social outcast in middle school, I would sit on the side watching the slow dances of the 1994-1995 season (guys putting their hands on the girls hips, with the girls putting their hands on the guys shoulders, and both parties stepping side to side in the same rhythm, no matter what the song was). I thought those dances were the first step to meeting Mr. Right and that if I wasn’t asked to dance, I would remain single for the rest of my life. Fifteen years later, I’m still waiting to be asked to dance.
I used to imagine myself as the awkward girl in romantic movies, you know, the girl with the glasses that the popular guy doesn’t notice at first, but once her glasses come off and her hair gets let down, he realizes that she’s more beautiful than anyone else he could’ve ever hoped for…and more interesting as well. I had braces, big hair, and my older brother’s hand-me-downs. I couldn’t wait for guys to dig below the surface to find that I was just what they were looking for.
I needed these fantasies. I went to a Jewish school in Atlanta where if you weren’t an athlete or a bully, you immediately became the target, not only by the students, but by some of the faculty as well. As my aspirations involved singing, dancing and a desire to hang out with Madonna and Paula Abdul (as opposed to Nirvana and Green Day), it became evident that there would be no support system in my everyday life, so I had to seek solace elsewhere. My friendships came from my acting classes, my boyfriends came from… well, the pictures ripped out of Dynamite magazines and taped to my doors. I had wonderful boyfriends: Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, and Mark Paul Gosselaar. I would kiss each of them goodnight almost every day, and I would fantasize that any one of them would come to the bar and bat mitzvahs to rescue me as I was getting beaten up while being called “faggot.”
I also fantasized about my future. While watching Fiddler on the Roof, I’d think about which groom I’d end up with, and I’d measure the pros and cons of each. Motel was cute, but a wimp; Perchik was passionate, but poor; and Fyedka… well, he wasn’t Jewish, so I wasn’t interested. In the end I’d always choose Perchik. Perchik would stand up for me and for rights of everyone around me. I needed someone who would fight the good fight and who I could believe in. I also wanted someone who would marry me under a chupa and stomp on the glass while everyone yelled “mazel tov.” I was going to be a Jewish bride and no amount of bullying from my peers was going to stop me.
After I graduated eighth grade, I went to an International School, as opposed to Yeshiva, and I was freed. I made instant friends (some of whom I’m still close to today) and I stopped looking over my shoulder for threats of violence. I participated in debates between the girls and boys of my class about whether gays were equal (boys usually voted no, girls voted yes), and I broke up with the men of my bedroom in favor of fantasies about the boys in my class.
I never doubted my Judaism. In fact, I connected with the fact that in spite of the adversity the Jewish people faced (and continue to face), we still survive and continue to thrive as a people. I needed to survive the torments of my youth because I knew that eventually life had to get better. I needed to be strong for myself, and for Perchik. After all, someday he would ask me to dance, right?
amirlevimm@gmail.com
Photo by zilupe, licensed under Creative Commons.
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.
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