In just under two months I’ll be winging my way across the ocean (and a sea) to take up residence in Jerusalem for my first year of cantorial school. It’s exciting both to be traveling and to be a student again, as I haven’t done either in several years, and I’m lucky to be getting lots of guidance along the way.

But the most challenging thing I’m dealing with is the apartment search. At first glance it seemed like it wouldn’t be so hard; there are listservs and websites all over the place, and I’ve found nice, long-term, affordable rentals, but there’s a catch. Many of the listings (especially the ones looking for roommates) begin with “Seeking shomer shabbat, shomer kashrut, religious woman to share…”

Hmmm. Well, I’m working on keeping shabbat and keeping kosher, both of which will be much easier in Jerusalem, but I have a feeling that by “religious” they don’t mean “queer-friendly.” In fact, I did email in response to five ads, explaining who I was and what I was going to be doing in Jerusalem, and two weeks later I haven’t heard back from one.

There are also ads that specify “non-religious” roommates, but given that my levels of observance are still growing, I’d really prefer to be living with others who are observant, or learning to be observant, so that we can learn from and support each other. (Also so I don’t get confused about which food in the fridge is mine, or when to turn the lights on after shabbes.)

My own ad, which I’m getting ready to post on one of the listservs, reads (so far) “I’m an American student studying to be a hazzan at the Conservative Yeshiva, looking for roommates who don’t mind that I observe shabbat, I’m learning kashrut, and I’m a lesbian.” The rest of my ad is still under construction, and I’m still revising the wording every few minutes. I wonder what kind of response I’ll get, if any.

A friend told me that there was no visible GLBT presence at all in Jerusalem when she was there in the 1990’s, and that now will be a more comfortable time to be there… but just recently there have been reports that many secular (read: progressive) Jews are leaving Jerusalem for Tel Aviv and other, less fundamentalist places.

“Jerusalem just got to be too extreme, and we decided it was time to leave,” said Alona Angel, 60, an Israeli who lived more than 30 years in Jerusalem before moving to Tel Aviv two years ago when her husband retired and the last of her children finished high school. “After so many years in Jerusalem, I thought it would be hard to leave, but it wasn’t.”

Angel said she was increasingly turned off by religious and political intolerance. She recalled being casually but modestly dressed one day when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman began yelling at her that she was not properly clothed. “I just felt less and less welcome,” said Angel, an interior designer. (read the rest of this article)

Will Jerusalem become the holdout of the fundamentalists, or can progressive, egalitarian Jews also exist in Jerusalem? Is it possible to find Israelis who are both observant and queer-friendly?

And if so, can we be roommates?