LGBTQ synagogue
Their religious doctrines vary, but are generally liberal; many affiliate with the Reform movement and one with Reconstructionism, while others, such as Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in New York City, are independent.
The ministry of Rabbi Yoel Kahn at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav was influential on liberal Jewish[3] attitudes toward AIDS throughout the United States.
LGBTQ synagogues mourning losses from AIDS created the modern Mi Shebeirach for healing, a prayer previously absent in most liberal Jewish practice.
BCC's admission into the Reform movement in 1974 was the first formal recognition of a gay and lesbian congregation by a national mainstream denomination of any world religion.
[5] Traditional Jews considered sex between men a sin on the basis of Leviticus 18:22, which condemns "l[ying] with a man as ... with a woman", and used this to justify said marginalization.
[6] The Stonewall riots of 1969 led to the birth of the modern gay rights movement, and with it greater awareness among LGBTQ Jews of hostility in synagogues.
[9] The world's first gay and lesbian synagogue[1] was the House of David and Jonathan, founded by Rabbi Herbert Katz in New York City in 1970.
[25] Across all world religions, BCC's admission to UAHC was the first formal recognition of a gay and lesbian congregation by a national mainstream denomination.
[28] Affiliations notwithstanding, gay and lesbian synagogues had members with diverse backgrounds within Judaism, from Reform to Orthodox, and often chose to create their own liturgies drawing from this blend of traditions.
[31] CBST likewise saw conflict over the role of women, with some men favoring traditional views over the feminism espoused in the prayerbook (which was degenderized a few years after BCC's).
[38] The prayer is now seen as central to liberal Jewish[3] ritual,[39] to the extent that in one ethnographic study many Jews were unaware of how recently Friedman and Setel's version was written.
[43] In New York, CBST participated in the founding of Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP, while AIDS killed almost half of its male active members.
[45] Gay and lesbian synagogues, in addition to working to comfort dying members, also lobbied national Jewish organizations to acknowledge the pandemic.
[47] Kahn's 1985 Yom Kippur sermon "AIDS is Our Earthquake" and a similar sermon delivered the same day by Robert Kirschner at Congregation Emanu-El, a nearby primarily straight congregation, were influential in shaping liberal American Jewish attitudes to AIDS, as LGBTQ and progressive synagogues advocated for stronger responses by the UAHC, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the Orthodox Union.
[26] On the other side of the country, the proudly lay-led CBST, almost a thousand strong by 1989 and under the pressures of the AIDS crisis, for the first time sought a rabbi.
[53] By 2001, CBST was the largest gay and lesbian synagogue in the world,[54] with Kleinbaum leading it beyond its substantial local influence in New York, onto the international stage.
[60] Synagogues have taken a variety of strategies to counter this: Some, such as Beit Haverim in Atlanta, have sought to attract Jews of color as another demographic often marginalized from traditional Jewish spaces.
[63] One prayer combined Isaiah 56 and 58, translating sarisim as 'the childless' rather than the more standard 'eunuchs', referencing gays and lesbians, who at the time rarely had children.
The degenderization of liturgy, including in references to God and the patriarchs and matriarchs, was a focus in early liturgical developments at BCC,[66] CBST,[69] and CSZ.
[74] At a time when there was no effective treatment for HIV/AIDS, CSZ's Mi Shebeirach emphasized spiritual healing as well as physical, as Jewish tradition says that prayers should not be in vain.
[77] Using a mix of Hebrew and English, a trend begun by Friedman in the 1970s,[68] the two chose to include the matriarchs as well as the patriarchs to "express the empowerment of those reciting and hearing the prayer".
