As Community: Accountability

Blessing for Torah Study

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la'asok b’divrei Torah. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who hallows us with mitzvot, charging us to engage with words of Torah.

Beginning with Our Own Torah

1) What does a communal apology look like? What do you think is its purpose?

2) Think back to a time when you participated in or witnessed a communal apology. You can also imagine an example of a communal apology that you wish to see. Now imagine an individual apology. How do the two experiences compare?

Returning to the Etymology of Teshuvah

Questions to consider: How has your understanding of the word teshuvah changed since the beginning of our studies? Where do you see teshuvah in your life and community?

The Acceptance of Openly Gay and Lesbian Rabbinic Students at HUC-JIR

Resolution on the 25th Anniversary of the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate

& The Acceptance of Openly Gay and Lesbian Rabbinic Students at HUC-JIR

by Central Conference of American Rabbis, March 16, 2015

Background

While there no doubt have always been homosexual rabbis; until very recent days, they lived deeply closeted lives.

Since 1977, the CCAR has spoken out in favor of civil rights for gay men and lesbians. Until 1990, however, the CCAR never took a position opposing discrimination within the synagogue and Jewish institutions. A 1981 responsum declared that “overt heterosexual behavior or overt homosexual behavior which is considered objectionable by the community disqualifies the person involved from leadership positions in the Jewish community” (American Reform Responsa XCI [1981], pp. 67-69).

In the years after the Stonewall revolution, a few gay and lesbian rabbis came out. With the exception of the gay and lesbian outreach congregations, no congregation knowingly hired a gay or lesbian rabbi, and several rabbis lost their positions when their sexual orientation became publicly known. Until 1990, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion did not knowingly admit or ordain gay or lesbian students. Many outstanding candidates for the rabbinate never applied, were screened out during the admissions process, or were asked to leave before being ordained....

In 1990, HUC-JIR for the first time declared that it would not affirmatively discriminate against gay and lesbian applicants....There was no mention of any non-discrimination policy or expectation with respect to placement. To the contrary, the Report indicates that “the unique position of the rabbi as spiritual leader and Judaic role model make acceptance of gay or lesbian rabbis an intensely emotional and potentially divisive issue.” In fact, gay and lesbian rabbis–or rabbis who were thought to be gay or lesbian–continued to experience discrimination for many years, whether being excluded from consideration, being counseled to remain “in the closet,” or losing their positions....

Since 1990, the CCAR has taken positions on the rights of gay men and lesbians, particularly in the area of marriage. However, it has made no further statement on the status of gay men or lesbians as rabbis.

Therefore, Be It Resolved:

That the Central Conference of American Rabbis:

1.Honors the memories of colleagues whose entire rabbinic service took place at a time when they could not openly live in fidelity to their sexual orientation while serving the Jewish community as rabbis;

2. Recognizes the pain of those colleagues and students who sought to serve the Jewish people through the rabbinate but were never allowed to serve or whose rabbinic careers were curtailed or constrained because of prejudice;

3. Salutes the gay and lesbian colleagues who were among the first to serve as rabbis after openly acknowledging their sexual orientation. Often sacrificially, they paved the way for a future generation that knows decreasing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation – and, we pray, for a generation to come that will not know this discrimination at all;

4. Honors the brave work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate (1986-1990) for its ultimate encouragement of the Reform Movement’s acceptance of gay and lesbian colleagues;

5. Celebrates the 25^th anniversary of the change in the admission policy at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, to permit the acceptance of gay and lesbian candidates for the rabbinate;

6. Joyfully marks this 25^th anniversary of the CCAR’s formal acknowledgement of openly gay and lesbian rabbis in our ranks, while recognizing that change came slowly, both before and after 1990;

7. Rejoices that this 25^th anniversary coincides with the installation of the first openly LGBT President of the Conference, Rabbi Denise L. Eger;

8. Expresses delayed gratitude to the Joint Commission on Rabbinic Placement for requiring that congregations seeking a rabbi sign a statement indicating that they will not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation;

9. Acknowledges that work remains to be done. Some colleagues may continue to feel compelled to be closeted. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation persists in the rabbinate. CCAR redoubles its commitment to enable colleagues to come out with safety and celebration and to end discrimination through education of colleagues, lay leaders, and the Jewish community throughout the world.

"Pride and Teshuvah" By Rabbi Jesse Olitzky (2018)

Too many of our institutions refuse to acknowledge the hurt and pain that we have caused. So many of our synagogues and churches, schools, camps, and youth groups caused so much pain to our gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer community members for so long. We not only turned away so many amazing individuals from organized religion and God, but also pushed a hetero-normative culture, and hid behind a specific verse of scripture – or a particular rabbinic interpretation of said verse – to suggest that there was something wrong with them because of who they love or how they identify. Our communities are at fault for far too long treating our loved ones, our community members who identify as gay, trans, bi, queer, gender non-binary or gender fluid, as grasshoppers.

And too many institutions, too many houses of worship refuse to even do teshuvah and acknowledge the pain that we caused on generations of members of our communities. It is amazing how many religious communities celebrate the LGBTQ community. At the recent North Jersey Pride Festival, there were five synagogues and three churches present! It is not enough to just condone our community members. It is not enough to just accept our community members. We celebrate. We wave our pride flags high to celebrate. We recite pride blessings to celebrate. We participate in the Pride Festival to celebrate. We celebrate as a way of doing teshuvah.

"Trans Rabbi Elliot Kukla Wants a Better World for Queer Jewish Youth"

By Lior Zaltzman, Kveller (2023)

Back in 2006, when Rabbi Elliot Kukla made history as the first transgender person ordained by a major movement, he had plenty of people tell him that Reform Judaism just wasn’t ready for a rabbi like him, that he wouldn’t be able to get a job. It wasn’t the first time someone in the institutionalized Jewish world told him no.

Kukla grew up in ’90s Toronto, where, they tell me, there just “wasn’t a lot of queer access to Jewish communal life." ...

When their first wife wanted to convert, she was refused at the mikvah for being in a queer relationship. “We were very involved in a synagogue that wouldn’t let us get married,” Kukla says. They decided, “I’m going to just open this door by myself,” and enrolled in rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College in New York.