Alef: The NEXT Conversation

Coming Out (Again)

By Idit Klein

“What do you do for work?”

Two days into my new position as executive director of Keshet I am at the shiva for a family friend. Most of the people here are older members of my parents’ synagogue whom I’ve known since I was a kid. One woman approaches me, smiling: “Your mother tells me you just finished graduate school. So, what are you doing now?”

For a moment I freeze and then stammer something about Keshet and working for the inclusion of gay Jews in the Jewish community.

I watch her smile turn into a firm line. “Oh, very nice,” she says and walks away.

I spend the rest of the shiva steering conversations away from questions about what I do for work–and feel guilty for hiding.

Being a professional queer Jew has meant losing the comforting possibility of ever separating my work identity from my personal identity. It means being unequivocally and irrevocably “out.” It means having to constantly answer the question, “What do you do for work?” and choosing either to come out–both as a Jew and a lesbian–or to hide.

When I became the director of Keshet in late August 2001, I faced a number of organizational challenges. I needed to build a board, grow a dwindling membership, and create new programs. I urgently needed to raise money and find new donors. And I needed to confront homophobia in the community that had always been my home. I knew the work would be difficult but assumed the issues, at least, would be clear. I thought people would see the homophobia and heterosexism in their communities either as problematic and in need of change, or as intrinsic to Jewish tradition and thus unavoidable. I was unprepared for how frequently these biases would lie unnoticed just below the surface of communal life; I did not expect people to be so fiercely invested in keeping these dynamics unseen and unacknowledged. I also didn’t expect to struggle with my own invisibility as a queer person.

“It takes energy to hide.”

I say this repeatedly when I talk with rabbis, directors of education at Hebrew schools, and other Jewish community members about why it is important for teachers to feel comfortable being out in the classroom. “If you are hiding an essential part of yourself, you are unable to be fully present, to be the most effective teacher, counselor, mentor, all the roles educators play in students’ lives.” But I have learned that it also takes energy to make oneself visible over and over and over.

A recent experience: I’m in a cab coming home from the airport after four long days of meetings, presentations, buttoned-down shirts, and stiff shoes. I’m exhausted and close my eyes, falling asleep in the wide, empty back seat.

“So, you coming back from vacation?” The driver’s voice jerks me awake.

“Um, no,” I say, “I was on a work trip,” my eyes already fluttering shut again.

But he’s in a conversational mood and continues, “Oh yeah, what were you doing?”

“Oh, I was at a conference in L.A.,” I answer. I didn’t plan to be vague. Yet as the final syllable escapes my lips, I know that I am hiding. He asks more questions, but I don’t tell him what kind of conference I was attending. I look at the “These Colors Don’t Run” American flag decal on the driver’s dashboard and his profile: crew cut, thick neck, ruddy face. I let my own biases and assumptions make me afraid. I allow myself to give in to my weariness and avoid engagement. And I berate myself for my fraudulence.

I was once on a bus in Israel sitting hand in hand with my girlfriend when two women started yelling, “Yesh lesbiot b’autobus ha-zeh! Yesh lesbiot b’autobus ha-zeh!” ["There are lesbians on this bus!"] while moving towards us threateningly. Yet years later, when I reflect on the challenges I have faced as a queer Jew, it is the countless, everyday experiences of coming out and being out that, perhaps surprisingly, impact me more. It is the constancy of the choice between integrity and the potentially painful risk of exposure; the need to be strong in the face of subtle, and at times, blatant, rejection.

“That’s never been an issue here.”

“But we don’t have any gay members” is the message I often hear from leaders in Jewish institutions, when I approach them with an offer to facilitate a GLBT awareness training for educators, a community dialogue about GLBT issues, or any other program that includes any of the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” or “transgender.” And then, with an expression that is slightly pained and concerned, some version of the question, “Are there really many of you?”

And so the question for me becomes: How can I prove the relevance of this work? How do I show the need? How can I expose the problem of queer invisibility?

Mostly, I tell stories. I share half a dozen tales of queer Jews. I talk about the youth group leader who was fired after he came out. The 31-year-old gay man who grew up Orthodox and now attends Unitarian Universalist services with his partner because they feel more welcome at their local UU church than at the Conservative shul. The candidate for a teaching position whose job offer was abruptly withdrawn after he came out. The 87-year-old lesbian who says kaddish alone for her partner of 64 years because she can’t conceive of a synagogue welcoming her.

I also ask questions.

“How did your shul/day-school/community organization get to the point where GLBT inclusion is a ‘non-issue’? What does that mean?”

“Can I tell our members that your shul is welcoming to gay people? Would it be comfortable for a lesbian couple to kiss one another Shabbat Shalom?”

“Do you want to have a more diverse community? Do you want the gay people who I’m sure are already in your community to feel safe and welcome being out?”

These questions tease out the hidden narratives. A rabbi tells me about the distraught parents who came to him for support after their daughter came out. A Hebrew school teacher talks about a 5th grade girl, Avital, who wears tzitzit, is growing pe’ot, and wants to be called only Avi. A day school principal remembers the Jewish history teacher who married her partner and could not share her simcha with the community. Slowly, the silence is punctuated by voices of loss, pain, and isolation. It is only then that the invisibility is seen and the loss is felt. It is then that we can begin to explore how to change this reality.

“But we’re not homophobic.”

I also frequently encounter people who are sincerely perplexed about the fact that not being homophobic cannot in and of itself create full inclusion. Soon after I started working for Keshet, I was asked to make a short presentation about our work to the allocations committee of a Jewish federation. Afterward, a man raised his hand and introduced himself as the coordinator of a Jewish young adult couples group. He explained his confusion: “I just don’t understand. I mean, I’m not homophobic. My girlfriend isn’t homophobic.” The woman sitting next to him smiled and nodded vigorously. “I really think no one in our group is homophobic, but no gay couples have ever come to one of our events. Why don’t they come?”

I responded with a simple question: “How would a gay couple know that you and the others in your group are not homophobic?” He blinked, “Um, I’m not sure what you mean.” I asked him if there was any language in the group’s description, images in PR materials, or advertising that GLBT people would see and thereby understand that this was an inclusive community.

The queer Jew who seeks a shul will take note of signposts of inclusion. Are there openly out members of the community? Do membership forms only offer spaces for “husband” and “wife” or do they easily accommodate other types of families? Does faculty orientation for Hebrew school teachers cover how to talk about family inclusively and what to do when kids say “That’s so gay”? In short, does the institution demonstrate active efforts to create an inclusive and welcoming culture?

Some of us will look for more than simple inclusion. We will seek communities that are open to transformative inclusion. Transformative inclusion is not just tolerance or even warm acceptance; it requires an awareness of the unique contributions GLBT Jews can offer and a commitment to embracing those gifts, even if that involves change. This means integrating queer Jewish narratives into our broader communal stories. It means changing long-held assumptions that all girls will grow up to marry boys and vice versa; that family trees begin with a mother and a father; that the ideal Jewish family follows a heterosexual nuclear model.

“Of course, we want gay people to feel supported, but homosexuality is not something we want to encourage.”

When I came out, like many of my generation, I was in college. I had been involved in my Hillel from practically my first step on campus. The Jewish community was my home. Yet when I came out, I suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. Even with the support of close friends and our Hillel rabbi, it took courage for me to come out in this Jewish community simply because there was no one else who was out.

I never heard any blatantly homophobic comments, but I felt the unfriendly stares when I walked into Hillel for Shabbat dinner holding my girlfriend’s hand. The complete absence of any signs of GLBT life in the campus Jewish community made me feel like I needed to declare my presence–or risk being swallowed up by the invisibility. There was a tremor in my voice during my carefully prepared coming-out “speech” to the Hillel executive committee. When I stopped speaking most of the room burst into applause, and I felt the quick, hot flush of relief and gratitude.

I am grateful for the loving support of my friends and the majority of my college community, but looking back, I am also troubled. Why? Because nearly fifteen years later, too many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jewish youth growing up today still have similar experiences–and they are the lucky ones.

As I write this, I imagine the irritated, confused chorus of voices saying, “Well, what does she want?” What I want is for no Jew to fear that his Jewish community will reject him because he is gay, bisexual, and/or transgender. I want no Jew to feel so invisible that she has to affirmatively declare her presence as a lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender person and, without any certainty, hope for acceptance. I want every Jewish child to know that ours is a community with an equal place for everyone: gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, straight, and/or trans (“trans” is increasingly being used as an umbrella term for transgender and transsexual identities.)

In this Jewish community, acceptance is not offered only once someone claims a GLBT identity; affirmation of all sexual and gender identities is a priori an integral part of our culture and communal values. In this Jewish community, our children know that whether they are gay or straight they can lead happy, healthy lives with strong, vibrant Jewish identities. In this Jewish community, the multiple realities of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are part of the lived, taught, and celebrated Jewish experience.

The whole concept of being “out” presumes that the point of departure is to be “in,” that queer identity begins in a state of concealment. I am committed to a new status quo in which there is no “in” from which to emerge. I seek a reality that offers multiple ways of being as equally valid and Jewishly authentic.

“It takes energy to hide.”

Almost six years after that family shiva, I attended another family event — this time a simcha, my brother’s wedding. My girlfriend and I are the first couple to walk down the aisle, followed by the bride’s sister and her boyfriend, and then the two pairs of parents. My family has accepted and supported me for years, but this kind of public recognition feels different and also important.

The burden of coming out is always with me. In moments when I avoid disclosure, my own hidden fissures crack through to the surface. When I lack the strength to out myself and be myself, I want to know that the Jewish community will hold me up and support me. I call on our community to rebuild the foundation of Jewish life to integrate what is still missing. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalms 118:22). May those who do the work of building and leading our community fix inclusion at the core of Jewish life now and in all the days to come.

Idit Klein serves as the Executive Director of Keshet, a national, grassroots organization working for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender inclusion in Jewish life.

Read more posts from the Gay Pride issue.

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