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RJ Exhibition Booklet KB RAINBOW JEWS Celebrating LGBT Jewish History and Heritage in the UK Rainbow Jews In the course of a single lifetime, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Jewish identity has been transformed, from something not even named to something celebrated. Fifty years ago, being Jewish and LGBT meant that you were invisible and unwanted. Over time, wider social changes as well as shifts in the thinking of progressive Jewish communities have enabled people to embrace their Jewish LGBT identity. Rainbow Jews is a ground-breaking oral history project that documents this journey. The stories of love and loss, struggles and victories, form the core of the oral history archive. Among them are the pioneers: the first rabbis to come out and speak on behalf of the Jewish LGBT community; the men, women and transgender Jews who struggled against prejudice and rejection; and the founders of the first LGBT-friendly synagogue. Yet there are also many whose voices we cannot hear today: those LGBT Jews who never lived to see a world in which their diverse identities are accepted and embraced. This exhibition is also dedicated to them. Rainbow Jews is supported by the National Lottery through the Lottery Heritage Fund, and hosted by Liberal Judaism. 2 Jewish and Gay: Conflict or Comfort? I was 19 at the time. I met a friend Being Jewish and LGBT makes you doubly of my sister’s who was a lesbian. I “different”. LGBT Jews often have to come to terms think she fancied me. She bought me with the social and religious effects of living with a silver cigarette case and I thought: both an LGBT and a Jewish identity. For many, the fight for acceptance among family and friends this is strange… I never cottoned on. begins with a battle for accepting yourself. I liked her but at the time I didn’t know. The feeling in those days was that things such as lesbians and gays don’t exist. They’re a breed apart. Orthodox and Transgender: Gay and “Semi-Religious”: Struggling to Conform Learning to Embrace Difference To Reni, in 1940s Palestine, meeting an openly lesbian woman awakened feelings she found hard Bella transitioned from male to Despite growing up in Glasgow in the to put into words. female in 2010, but growing up near 1960s, David Rubin found his sexuality London in the 1960s and 1970s, she easy to accept. fought against her gender. “I never struggled against it, never “From the age of four or five ever... I didn’t ever feel abnormal, [I remember] knowing [I] was I didn’t ever feel I was doing actually presenting to society in the something wrong. I knew I was wrong gender. I felt female but had different, but I accepted that. But to live as a male. And so, I had to then I was different being Jewish, over-compensate and demonstrate I was different being vegetarian, even more that I was male and and so I was always different.” hide away my female self.” 3 4 The Love that Dare Alone No More not Speak its Name Prohibited by British as well as biblical law, the LGBT Jews wanted to be out and proud, but in order to situation of gay Jewish men seemed impossible before find the confidence to express their LGBT-Jewish identity, homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967. At the they needed the support of others. On 13 October same time, the refusal to acknowledge the existence 1970, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was established of lesbianism meant that many Jewish lesbian and at the London School of Economics. The movement bisexual women felt estranged from their religious campaigned for radical changes in society that would community and British society as a whole. lead to wider acceptance of lesbian and gay people. It was a forbidden subject, you didn’t It wasn’t really until I dare. You have to remember, it was a discovered the Jewish criminal offence in England, unless you Gay Group that it lived in a certain type of society – café actually became much society – where things like Noel Coward easier for me to accept existed. But if you lived in middle-class that you could still lead suburbia, it was impossible. a Jewish life, but be gay at the same time – Rabbi Lionel Blue because other people were doing it. Simon Benson, quoted in Come The label ‘lesbian’ was just not possible. Together, the magazine of the Gordon Woolfe I was Jewish and born in 1960, fifteen GLF, in 1971, describes the feeling of no longer being alone. “As gay years after the Holocaust, after the Jewish people we feel at long last Second World War had ended, so it just that we have convinced the Jewish really wasn’t within my vocabulary. community that we do exist in large numbers. History will record that Tess Joseph we are the first Jewish homosexual group in Europe.” 5 6 We Are Family Pride and Prejudice As the 1970s progressed, many LGBT Jews were A new, shared sense of solidarity and purpose more confident in being out and proud. Groups such meant that LGBT Jews were an increasingly visible as the Jewish Gay Group (JGG) provided much needed presence in the 1980s and 1990s. Pride marches were opportunities to meet like-minded individuals. Meetings an opportunity to get together and make a strong at Soho drinking spots and weekend socials created statement. Yet this new outspokenness took place an alternative, close-knit support network that felt, for against a new political backdrop that was increasingly many, like a family. hostile towards the LGBT community. There was a tiny, tiny network of On 24 May 1988, a law was passed Pride marches people that had coffee evenings and stating that local authorities were really getting socials... Yeah, it was nice to make “shall not intentionally promote established in the 80s, the connection with my Jewishness homosexuality or publish material so we thought why with the intention of promoting and my gayness because I didn’t homosexuality”. It was a blow to not have the Jewish think that was possible. LGBT communities everywhere. Gay Group ‘Bagel and Russell Vandyk cream cheese’ stall? However, this was also the We would always sell beginning of changing attitudes out. We had hundreds to homosexuality in Jewish of these bagels, and communities, as Jews started some people actually to stand up against the anti- homosexual legislation. joined the group on the strength of that. We had a banner and we would march… it The very first meeting I ever came to felt like a coming out. was the men’s pub evening at the King’s It was very special. Arms. I met someone and fell in love. That was pretty dramatic. Russell Vandyk recalls early efforts made by the Jewish Rabbi Mark Solomon on a visit to the King’s Arms in Gay Group to reach out beyond Soho, which has always been London’s “pink mile”. the Jewish Community: 7 8 Return to Values: Lives of Duplicity Responding to the AIDS Crisis The AIDS outbreak of the late 1980s threatened to Although progressive Judaism in the UK has long engulf gay communities throughout the Western world, welcomed LGBT people into its communities, more and many felt more estranged than ever from their traditional strands have struggled with the acceptance heterosexual friends and family. of those who lead alternative lifestyles. Liberal Judaism convert Nick There’s a tradition in Zizi describes life in London’s In 2010, Esther, a mother of five, Jackson speaks of this period as one Jewish life of looking United Synagogue life at the turn found support with the JGLG of mutual misunderstanding: after your own, of of the 21st century. after leaving the ultra-Orthodox charity and looking community for a more secular life. “In the 90s when a lot of people were dying of AIDS, there used to be these after the elderly and At the time I came I always tell people horrendous scenarios whereby the that sort of thing. And out [the synagogue] I grew up in London, parents would blame the gay friends therefore gay people would not have but I didn’t really grow and the gay friends would blame had to learn that. And been particularly up in London: I grew the homophobic parents and at the I think they only learnt supportive. up in Stamford Hill as funeral… each side was looking it through the AIDS part of the Hassidic, daggers at each other.” business, as they were the Ultra-Orthodox Abi Jay is the only known Jewish For gay Jewish men, the ongoing faced with a problem intersex person in the UK, and grew up community. It was struggle for acceptance which was more or in an Orthodox environment. After her like living in a bubble. by mainstream Jewish less theirs. gender reassignment, she continued to I knew if I wanted to denominations meant that attend a conservative synagogue. She live... as a lesbian I many were forced to seek Rabbi Lionel Blue says: “I have got so close to my mother couldn’t do it in that support from communities they with all this; the Rabbi of our Orthodox community. had formed themselves. congregation gave his blessing so I could sit next to my mother in shul. That’s a nice feeling.” 9 10 Under the Chuppah “The Wheel Could Turn” Fighting for the Right to Marry In 1998, the Working Party of the Rabbi’s Assembly Early Jewish LGBT activists struggled for recognition published a report to help Reform rabbis in deciding against a backdrop of institutionalised homophobia and whether to conduct lesbian and gay commitment widespread misunderstanding.
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