Queer Jews

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Addition
Review: "Queer Jews" deserves its place among the previous Lesbian and Lesbigay Jewish Anthologies, Evelyn Torton-Beck's Nice Jewish Girls (1982, reprint and expanded 1989) and Christi Balka and Andy Rose's Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish (1989). It not only pays homage to its predecessors (see the Introduction and Balka and Rose's own contribution), it honors them by reflecting some of the changes that have occurred in the past 20 years.

This is immediately intimated by the title's use of the word 'queer' and further carried through with essays by transgender or non-traditionally gendered Jews. Although 'queer,' is used throughout the book mainly as an umbrella term "to include lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people" (14) when one delves more deeply into a number of the individual contributions, one senses the mobilization of the term queer as something that "marks a suspension of identity as something fixed, coherent, and natural"(Jagose, Queer Theory, p. 98). Queerness and Jewishness are thus both expanded--or stretched--within this book's pages. Thus Queer Jews not only calls into question conventional understandings of sexual identity by deconstructing the categories, oppositions and equations that sustain them, it similarly calls into question (many) conventional understandings of 'Jewish identity'. This is a good thing.

And so it that an essay about a traditional Jewish lesbian wedding is bound together with a cogent questioning of the Reform Movement's recent decision to recognize (sanction?) 'same-sex' marriage. And the stories of a non-traditionally gendered Reform Hebrew School teacher, a gay Orthodox rabbi, a closeted Conservative rabbinical student, and a secular 'liberationist fem' are similarly bound together in this book. One is also invited--or swept--on the road with the creator ('mother') of the groundbreaking film "Trembling Before G-d", further carried into the Yiddish Film Archives for queer subtexts, and finally (finely) guided through queer viewings of Angels in America and The Producers. Added to this, Queer Jews tra(ns)verses geographical boundaries, including essays about queer Jews in the U.S., Israel, and Canada (the latter of which cites two articles by Jewish lesbians in Australia).

Sprinkled throughout the book are essays specifically about activism (though all of the essays, let's be clear, are activism)--in schools, on the streets, at Seders taken to the streets, and at the Kotel (Western Wall). One essay deftly delivers us into the tangled web of anti-semitism, homophobia, classicism, and racism all present in queer Jewish adoptions.

And there's history here too--history in the making as well as glimpses of the range of GLBTQ Jewish history over the past decades. Could one ask for more?
Emphatically yes. Queer Jews earns its place in the expanding canon--let's just call it torah--of GLBTQ Jews. Among its greatest triumphs may just well be its power to spark more queer Jews to tell their (our) stories. Is there a Queer Jews Too in the works? This reader certainly hopes so. And please, let's not wait another 10 years.

Rating:
Summary: queer and jewish
Review: I highly enjoyed the essays in this new anthology. They cover a lot of ground--an Orthodox rabbi's coming out story next to the experience of two transgender Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Aviv and Shneer have done an great job of capturing the voices of a new generation of queer Jews active in both the Jewish and queer worlds.

They also do a good job of capturing the many ways queer Jews are making changes in their communities. There are radical critiques of oppression of all kinds and many voices calling for queer Jews to work from the inside.

Rating:
Summary: The voice of the next generation speaks out
Review: I thank Shneer and Aviv for this wonderful, thought-provoking anthology. As I read the collection I found myself becoming more and more engaged with the essays, the authors themselves, and the sometimes conflicting worlds they described. I learned something from all of the contributors, even those whose politics, understanding of Judaism, or presentation of themselves as "queer" rankled or frustrated me. (Actually, I think I learned the most from the authors who frustrated me!)

The editors and all the book's contributors have done an excellent job of capturing the diversity of a new generation of queer Jews and the impact they are having on both the Jewish and queer communities. This book has made me re-examine what being a gay man and a Jew means to me. Bravo to Shneer and Aviv for putting together such a timely and insightful book!

Rating:
Summary: Inspirational
Review: Shneer & Aviv's Queer Jews presents a striking collection of academic thought, personal experience and political views expressed by an interesting and diverse group of contributors who have much to offer on the issues affecting people who identify as a minority group within a minority group - both queer and Jewish.

This informed volume bravely assesses where queer & Jewish people currently are in the progression towards acceptance by both their own culture as well as the wider society, whilst providing important pointers for future work that must yet be done.

As a non-Jew, I have found this milestone work to be a useful and fascinating insight into understanding the experiences and issues dealt with by friends who are both queer and Jewish. As a gay man, I have been personally challenged and inspired by the strength of character and determination to be accepted as part of a community, as demonstrated throughout the essays in Queer Jews.

From out and proud Reformist Rabbis and closeted Orthodox Rabbis to a personal dilemma of whether to pray on the male or female side of the Western Wall; from queer Jewish education to queer Jewish students' first public protest; from the challenges of queer Jewish weddings to queer Jewish parenting and adoption, Queer Jews is a significant positive step in the right direction for inclusiveness, acceptance and unity - a book that should be read by anyone connected with queer and/or Jewish culture. You can't help but be impressed with the great strides that queer Jewish people have made in their communities, whilst also recognising that there are still difficulties ahead to face.

Rating:
Summary: The voice of the next generation speaks out
Review: This book is a much-needed anthology representing diverse voices, primarily from young, out [homosexual] Jews today. The essays are challenging and inspiring, and demand that Jewish communities everywhere move beyond tolerance and towards full acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jews.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Joan Nestle....
Review: Yes, I am a Jew. Yes, I am queer. And, yes, I find this book appalling.

I can overlook the tacky rainbow dreidles on the cover. I can even get past the fact that the introduction by Aviv & Shneer reads like a bad 7th grade book report. But, the message contained in that introduction? Simply frightening.

The one saving grace? Joan Nestle's submission, "How a 'Liberationist' Fem Understands Being a Queer Jew, or How Taking Advice from a Prophet, Even a Jewish One, is (Un)Transformative." Tears streamed down my face as I read Nestle's words, so beautifully written, so on point. Thank you Joan.

So, as you read through this shanda, keep in mind the words of Kahlil Gibron as he writes on Pleasure....

Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart;
Yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

B'Shalom uv'ahavah...
Concerned Human