LGBTQ synagogues (historically known as gay and lesbian synagogues) are synagoguesThe word synagogue is used broadly here; some may rather refer to themselves as congregations, temples, worship communities, chavurot, or minyanim. primarily serving LGBTQ Jews. LGBTQ synagogues date to 1970, with the oldest extant one, Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) in Los Angeles, established in 1972. 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. Many use custom liturgy shaped by the LGBTQ experience and Jewish feminism, often using degenderized terms to refer to God. LGBTQ synagogues are largely found in the United States, although one, Beit Klal Yisrael, exists in London.
Early LGBTQ synagogues emerged alongside and with the help of the LGBTQ-affirming Metropolitan Community Church. The synagogues' growth was heavily shaped by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, which in some congregations killed close to half of the membership. The ministry of Rabbi Yoel Kahn at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav was influential on liberal Jewish 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. Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Drorah Setel, a lesbian couple with ties to BCC, debuted their well-known setting of the prayer in 1987. The prayer is now seen as central to liberal Jewish ritual.
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. The Reform movement has since become strongly LGBTQ-affirming, which has contributed to a decrease in attendance at LGBTQ synagogues as LGBTQ Jews feel more comfortable in non-LGBTQ-oriented spaces. At least three Reform LGBTQ synagogues have merged into larger Reform synagogues in the 21st century. At the same time, non-LGBTQ attendance has risen at LGBTQ synagogues, with some positioning themselves as homes for other marginalized groups. The largest LGBTQ synagogue, CBST, has about 1,000 members .
History
Origins and recognition (1970–1982) LGBTQ people were marginalized in the American Jewish community of the 1960s. 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. 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. The spread of the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ-affirming Christian denomination founded in 1968, inspired more organization among LGBTQ Jews. This included both Jewish organizations—the first being the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group in London, England, in 1972—and, in the United States, synagogues.
The world's first gay and lesbian synagogueThe synagogues discussed in this article are now generally known as LGBTQ synagogues (or by variants of LGBTQ such as LGBT). However, in the 1970s and 1980s there was little discussion of bisexual and transgender Jews, and the terms "gay synagogue" or "gay and lesbian synagogue" were used (). Based on an analysis of Congregation Sha'ar Zahav and to a lesser extent Beth Chayim Chadashim, Drinkwater finds that the role of bisexuals increased from the mid-1980s through the 1990s, and the role of transgender Jews from the late 1990s through early 2000s. Around this time, gay and lesbian synagogues shifted to labels of "LGBT synagogue" and similar (). was the House of David and Jonathan, founded by Rabbi Herbert Katz in New York City in 1970. It received little support and shut down after six weeks.. , citing . The Metropolitan Community Temple was founded in Los Angeles two years later by Jews who would meet at the local MCC. They later took the name Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC), meaning "House of New Life", a reference to the MCC's newsletter, New Life.. According to , the congregation considered simply hebraizing their old name, although no specific name was proposed, as none spoke fluent Hebrew. Due to the House of David and Jonathan's short lifespan, BCC is often considered the first gay and lesbian synagogue.. Other sources treating BCC as the first include ; ; and asserts that "by some accounts" Beit Simchat Torah "started virtually simultaneously" with BCC in 1972. However, both and trace its founding to the classified ad that ran on February 9, 1973. Several other early gay and lesbian synagogues were born of ties to the MCC, including Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST; spelling later changed to Beit) in New York City in 1973 and the Metropolitan Community Synagogue in Miami in 1974 (renamed Congregation Etz Chaim the next year; ). CBST, which grew to more than 100 members in two years, leased a location of its own in 1975, having previously met at the Episcopalian Church of the Holy Apostles. BCC bought a property in Pico-Robertson in 1978.
After controversy including an opposing responsum from the Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC, the Union for Reform Judaism) admitted BCC in July 1974, by a vote of 61 to 22 among the Executive Committee's Board of Trustees.; . (Cooper incorrectly gives a date of 1973.) The admission of BCC differed from other pro-LGBTQ decisions of the UAHC/URJ in that it was led by laity rather than the rabbinate. 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. Etz Chaim, Congregation Beth Ahavah (Philadelphia), Or Chadash of Chicago, and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav (CSZ) of San Francisco joined the UAHC in the following decade. A number of other gay and lesbian synagogues either joined or became linked to the UAHC, while Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta joined Reconstructionist Judaism. Notably, however, CBST elected for independence from any stream of Judaism. 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.. In the context of CSZ, Drinkwater refers to this blend as "reformadox" (p. 190). In some synagogues this shifted to a more mainstream liturgy over time.
Tensions over gender were a defining aspect of gay and lesbian synagogues at this era. Jewish feminists and gay and lesbian Jews heavily overlapped. Feminist complaints about gendered liturgical language led BCC to print the first genderless prayerbook in 1975, but perceived sexism by male congregation leaders led to repeated conflicts with the minority of woman congregants.. . 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).. Shokeid is inconsistent as to the timing of the degenderization: On p. 73, a congregant describes the siddur as "recently ... degenderized" as of September 1979. On pp. 101–109, Shokeid describes the new siddur, "With All Your Heart", its English text "thoroughly degenderized" (p. 108), as introduced in May 1981. In 1979, CSZ became the first gay and lesbian congregation to hire a rabbi—Allen B. Bennett, the first openly gay rabbi in the U.S. In CSZ's horizontal, feminist structure, the decision to hire a rabbi at all was controversial, leading to a wave of resignations by women, although some subsequently returned.
AIDS crisis, Mi Shebeirach, and Jewish healing (1982–1992) The trajectory of gay and lesbian synagogues in the United States was deeply shaped by the AIDS crisis, which began in 1982. The synagogues' reaction to the crisis played a major role in the formation of the Jewish healing movement and the reintroduction of the Mi Shebeirach for healing, which had fallen out of use in Reform settings in the 1800s..The concept of a "healing prayer" or "healing service" should not be confused with faith healing. Healing prayers in the liberal Jewish tradition emphasize spiritual healing and, in a messianic sense, universal healing of the community: : "Kahn felt that in the face of AIDS, when the disease was still largely a death sentence, the words of the traditional blessing for healing were a ['false', 'vain', or 'useless' prayer]. ... So, [CSZ] broadened the language in both Hebrew and English to include spiritual healing as a messianic hope for the community. ... [A] 'time of complete healing' was imagined as a future redemptive moment for the entire community, not just those currently facing illness or grief, and envisioned universal healing, not the healing of any specific body." (p. 617) "A key distinction ... between most of these contemporary rituals and the folk traditions of the past is that participants rarely ask for or expect a direct improvement in one's physical condition or the elimination of any illness via ritual or prayer." (p. 626) : "Jewish leaders are eager to differentiate themselves from 'faith healers' in the Pentecostal Christian tradition, and they emphasize that they do not claim to heal bodies."
CSZ began using a communal written by Garry Koenigsburg and Rabbi Yoel Kahn, praying to heal "all the ill amongst us, and all who have been touched by AIDS and related illness". At BCC, a 1985 prayerbook supervised by Rabbi Janet Marder included several prayers for healing, including a blessing the full congregation with health, success, and forgiveness. Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Drorah Setel, a lesbian couple. "Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Drorah Setel, two feminist innovators deeply connected to Judaism’s Reform Movement (and then romantic partners)" (p. 606). "Although active in lesbian feminist circles and well-known among those women as a lesbian, Debbie Friedman generally kept her sexual orientation private" (pp. 618–619). "The extent to which Debbie Friedman was or was not 'out' or 'in the closet' remains contested. After she died in 2011, some commentators who publicly described her as a lesbian were critiqued for 'outing' her posthumously, given Friedman's perceived preference in life to keep her sexuality private. But others, including close friends, argued that she was not really closeted, just guarded about her private life" (p. 619 n. 52), citing & . with ties to the BCC-affiliated AIDS Project Los Angeles and many gay and lesbian Jewish leaders, debuted their well-known setting of in 1987. The prayer is now seen as central to liberal JewishAs defined by , Liberal Jewish denominations are those that are not Orthodox. The main ones in the United States are Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, and Jewish Renewal. ritual,, citing and . to the extent that in one ethnographic study many Jews were unaware of how recently Friedman and Setel's version was written.. "Often, the people I was interviewing knew only the modern version of the prayer, yet its historical resonance was still central to their reactions to it. Sarah, : 'It's so powerful knowing that people have been saying these exact words for thousands of years.' When I pointed out that the version she was referring to was only 20 years old, she was baffled" (p. 181).