What do you think?
Rate this book
A Gay Synagogue in New York
An account of the thirteen months Shokeid spent with the congregation of Beth Simchat Torah in Greenwich Village, whose membership has grown to one thousand since its founding in 1973, making it the largest gay congregation in the United States. Explores the dramatic true story of how a group of gay and lesbian Jews to confront questions of sexual identity within the traditional religious framrwork of their ancestors, in order to create the world's largest gay congregation, New York's Beth Simchat Torah. (American Jewish World)
264 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 1995
75 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Read
June 16, 2017Review now also on my website with nicer formatting, book pic, etc:
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/book...
If I hear it once again that the American Jewish queer community was not hit heavily by the AIDS epidemic, I will consider whacking them with this book.
Of course I know where the bias comes from: most of American Jewish QUILTBAG writing is *lesbian* writing. (Gay men's writing is second but the difference is still quite noticable IMO. There is much less of trans writing and any other letter in the acronym is barely there.)
But. In any case. You will want to know that this anthropological study introduces a gay & lesbian synagogue, how it is organized, how the members lead their religious and social lives, etc.
And then all the men start dying.
So. Just so you're prepared for that.
In any case, it is a testimony to the earnest persistence of the synagogue members that the synagogue (Congregation Beth Simchat Torah) not only survived the AIDS crisis, but is now the largest LGBT synagogue in the world. (Though it spells its name slightly differently, but the book describes how much controversy was there around the name and how the synagogue basically ended up with it by fiat of a lawyer doing of a paperwork, so I am not surprised.)
The book has a strong descriptive style, it does not lean very heavily on theoretical analysis - so it can also be read as a history of the synagogue community up till the early 90s. I found myself wishing someone wrote up something similar for the synagogues I have been part of.
One big issue is right at the beginning, namely that at first the author didn't disclose he was doing research, though it kind of reads like at first he wasn't sure. But then he seemed to have made up his mind before telling most members. He did tell them eventually and some of them were angry. But then people (the majority of them at least?) ended up liking the project, voluntarily participated in detailed interviews, and some even demanded that they be named under their own names, not pseudonyms. I got the impression there was no one who was explicitly opposed to the book, in the end? I hope not. (I had a bad experience in a similar context, so I understand it's really hard to know unless someone explicitly calls out the anthropologist, which is very rare.)
I honestly think this book is invaluable - there is very very little written about the lives of religious queer Jews in general, and especially in a synagogue setting, AND especially from a not so recent time period. It also documents the impact of AIDS.
(I read elsewhere that the synagogue chose a woman rabbi because all the men died and the women had more institutional power. But the book describes the process in detail, and in fact the rabbi was the choice of mostly the men, several of whom were terminally ill and knew it.)
It is hard for me to know about these things because I was born in the 1980s and in Eastern Europe, so I have no direct experience of the American AIDS crisis - and people don't tend to talk about it. In the context of queer Jewish writing, the people who talk about it are often lesbian women who minimize it. I honestly thought that was true before I read this book - that Jews being somewhat insular, maybe they were relatively spared. No. It is heartbreaking how all these very determined and enthusiastic young men are introduced and then they all start becoming very sick and rapidly passing away.
But I don't want to make it sound like the entire book is about AIDS. Most of it isn't. There is a lot of everyday synagogue bickering ('why are we named after a holiday, no synagogues are named after holidays') and the typical hairsplitting discussions about nusach etc., who leads the prayers, who says the dvar Torah, who should preferably NOT be asked to say a dvar Torah. It is really heimish and nice. There's also the typical tension of innovative groups about just how traditional they want to be in their religious services. They end up quite traditional, and even have a Talmud study group, though it is somewhat insular and set apart from the rest of the membership. (The author is a bit perplexed by this, but I personally would LOVE a queer Talmud study group locally, it would be exactly my thing.)
A note on minhag: CBST had the custom - I don't know if they still have it - that the 'big' dvar Torah from the bimah on Friday night was said by a member of the community. I think that's really cool, I'd love to do that. The book describes the related negotiations, the different kinds of divrei Torah and how they were received by various members of the community, etc. I found this really interesting.
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/book...
If I hear it once again that the American Jewish queer community was not hit heavily by the AIDS epidemic, I will consider whacking them with this book.
Of course I know where the bias comes from: most of American Jewish QUILTBAG writing is *lesbian* writing. (Gay men's writing is second but the difference is still quite noticable IMO. There is much less of trans writing and any other letter in the acronym is barely there.)
But. In any case. You will want to know that this anthropological study introduces a gay & lesbian synagogue, how it is organized, how the members lead their religious and social lives, etc.
And then all the men start dying.
So. Just so you're prepared for that.
In any case, it is a testimony to the earnest persistence of the synagogue members that the synagogue (Congregation Beth Simchat Torah) not only survived the AIDS crisis, but is now the largest LGBT synagogue in the world. (Though it spells its name slightly differently, but the book describes how much controversy was there around the name and how the synagogue basically ended up with it by fiat of a lawyer doing of a paperwork, so I am not surprised.)
The book has a strong descriptive style, it does not lean very heavily on theoretical analysis - so it can also be read as a history of the synagogue community up till the early 90s. I found myself wishing someone wrote up something similar for the synagogues I have been part of.
One big issue is right at the beginning, namely that at first the author didn't disclose he was doing research, though it kind of reads like at first he wasn't sure. But then he seemed to have made up his mind before telling most members. He did tell them eventually and some of them were angry. But then people (the majority of them at least?) ended up liking the project, voluntarily participated in detailed interviews, and some even demanded that they be named under their own names, not pseudonyms. I got the impression there was no one who was explicitly opposed to the book, in the end? I hope not. (I had a bad experience in a similar context, so I understand it's really hard to know unless someone explicitly calls out the anthropologist, which is very rare.)
I honestly think this book is invaluable - there is very very little written about the lives of religious queer Jews in general, and especially in a synagogue setting, AND especially from a not so recent time period. It also documents the impact of AIDS.
(I read elsewhere that the synagogue chose a woman rabbi because all the men died and the women had more institutional power. But the book describes the process in detail, and in fact the rabbi was the choice of mostly the men, several of whom were terminally ill and knew it.)
It is hard for me to know about these things because I was born in the 1980s and in Eastern Europe, so I have no direct experience of the American AIDS crisis - and people don't tend to talk about it. In the context of queer Jewish writing, the people who talk about it are often lesbian women who minimize it. I honestly thought that was true before I read this book - that Jews being somewhat insular, maybe they were relatively spared. No. It is heartbreaking how all these very determined and enthusiastic young men are introduced and then they all start becoming very sick and rapidly passing away.
But I don't want to make it sound like the entire book is about AIDS. Most of it isn't. There is a lot of everyday synagogue bickering ('why are we named after a holiday, no synagogues are named after holidays') and the typical hairsplitting discussions about nusach etc., who leads the prayers, who says the dvar Torah, who should preferably NOT be asked to say a dvar Torah. It is really heimish and nice. There's also the typical tension of innovative groups about just how traditional they want to be in their religious services. They end up quite traditional, and even have a Talmud study group, though it is somewhat insular and set apart from the rest of the membership. (The author is a bit perplexed by this, but I personally would LOVE a queer Talmud study group locally, it would be exactly my thing.)
A note on minhag: CBST had the custom - I don't know if they still have it - that the 'big' dvar Torah from the bimah on Friday night was said by a member of the community. I think that's really cool, I'd love to do that. The book describes the related negotiations, the different kinds of divrei Torah and how they were received by various members of the community, etc. I found this really interesting.
August 11, 2018
College textbook
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews