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The following drash/sermon was given during Yom Kippur at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. I love being Jewish. I always have. From the moment I knew I was Jewish, I found a home in the prayers, larger-than-me concepts, values and sense of community that were infused in everything we did. I was aware, however, that I was [...]

cross-posted to jspot Yesterday, I posted about Lantos‘ support of trans communities. Later that day I was alerted to the murder of Sanesha Stewart, a 25 year old black transgender woman from the Bronx. Her murder is not an isolated incident, nor is the horrific coverage by the news media new. What I think is [...]

This afternoon, thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Jews will be gathering at the Israeli Consulate in protest of tomorrow’s Jerusalem Pride March. Please join our community at 3:00pm at the consulate for a peaceful demonstration of tolerance in support of the LGBT community of Jerusalem in the midst of this violence and hate. We are not gathering [...]

so, summary: the haredi jews have declared a holy war on the jerusalem pride march. pretty much any horrific thing you can imagine has been used as a threat against the pride march — apples armed with razor blades, bombs, stabbings, murders, whatever it takes, right down to a kabbalistic curse. i am most terrrified [...]

(again, disclaimer: i work for CBST; the parts not expressly from them should be assumed to be from me): To quote from the press release: To protest this year’s planned march, several hundred Ultra-Orthodox Jews rioted in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood, lighting fires, overturning trash bins, and pelting police and motorists with stones, over the [...]

(full disclosure: I work for CBST, which is pretty much JOH’s contact in the States; our senior rabbi was the North America co-coordinator for WorldPride 2006, and obviously works very closely with JOH.) This shit is ridiculous: Jerusalem Open House,* one of the Middle East’s few LGBT resources and certainly one of the only LGBT [...]