From the Gay Synagogue to the Queer Shtetl: Normativity, Innovation, and Utopian Imagining in the Lived Religion of Queer and Transgender Jews

222 Pages·2017·0.982 MB·English

by  Sonia Crasnow

UC Riverside
UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
From the Gay Synagogue to the Queer Shtetl: Normativity, Innovation, and Utopian
Imagining in the Lived Religion of Queer and Transgender Jews
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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6g6216n6
Author
Crasnow, Sonia
Publication Date
2017

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE

From the Gay Synagogue to the Queer Shtetl: Normativity, Innovation, and Utopian
Imagining in the Lived Religion of Queer and Transgender Jews

A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Religious Studies

by

Sonia Jennifer Crasnow

June 2017

Dissertation Committee:
Dr. Michael Alexander, Co-Chairperson
Dr. Jane Ward, Co-Chairperson
Dr. Amanda Lucia
Dr. Melissa Wilcox
The Dissertation of Sonia Jennifer Crasnow is approved:

Committee Co-Chairperson

Committee Co-Chairperson

University of California, Riverside
Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of my committee members, without
whom this dissertation would not have been possible. I am thankful to Professors
Alexander, Ward, Lucia, and Wilcox for their guidance and support. I am also grateful
for the financial support that helped to fund this dissertation from the University of
California, Riverside, including funds from the Center for Ideas & Society and the
Department of Religious Studies. I am also appreciative of my colleagues who helped me
to clarify the ideas in this dissertation, including my cohort in the 2014 Harvard Divinity
School Summer Seminar on Religion and Sexuality; my cohort in the 2015 Mellon
Advancing Intercultural Studies Seminar; my fellow graduate student colleagues in the
department of Religious Studies; and the mentors I gained through the American
Academy of Religion (AAR) Mentoring Program for LGBTIQ Religious Studies
Scholars as well as the “Cup of Coffee” mentorship program. Lastly, I want to
acknowledge the organizations that welcomed me and allowed me to do this work,
including: Keshet; Mayyim Hayyim Mikveh; Workman’s Circle; Congregation Am
Tikva; Moishe Kavod House; JQ International; Beth Chayim Chadashim; and the Sandra
Caplan Community Beit Din.

iii
Dedication

This work does not simply belong to me, but to all those who helped to bring it
into being. With that in mind I dedicate it to my family: Sharon, Ellis, Sascha, Steph, Kit,
and Max; my friends; the research participants who generously shared their stories and
time with me; and to my spouse, and partner in all things, Kate.

iv
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

From the Gay Synagogue to the Queer Shtetl: Normativity, Innovation, and Utopian
Imagining in the Lived Religion of Queer and Transgender Jews

by

Sonia Jennifer Crasnow

Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Religious Studies
University of California, Riverside, June 2017
Dr. Michael Alexander, Co-Chairperson
Dr. Jane Ward, Co-Chairperson

This dissertation is based on nearly two years of multi-sited ethnographic
observations and seventy-two semi-structured interviews documenting the religious lives
of queer and transgender Jews in Boston and Los Angeles. My primary analytic interest
is in how LGBTQ Jews adapt their religious lives in response to the privileging of
heterosexuality and cisgender (non-transgender) identity, or even
homophobia/transphobia, in normative Judaism. I explore how queer and transgender
Jews are assimilated, or not, into normative frameworks of Jewish law, theology,
ritual/liturgy, and religious spaces. Previous ethnographic research on queer religious
communities within the field of Religious Studies has sometimes given minimal attention
to queer and transgender theory and to gender nonconforming and transgender
participants; in contrast, my work asserts the central importance of transgender
participants and queer/transgender theory to such projects. My first chapter focuses on
the function of LGBTQ and/or Jewish organizations as well as synagogues in fostering
v
LGBTQ community and inclusion in Jewish spaces. The second chapter explores the
interplay between Jewish and LGBTQ identity in politics and activism with regard to
Israel and Palestine, a topic that can be polarizing in both LGBTQ and Jewish
communities. The third and fourth chapters analyze the disparate ways actors within
normative institutional Judaism, as well as transgender Jews, address inclusion. I consider
a conversation amongst rabbis on inclusion for transgender converts as well as
transgender-affirming rituals created by and for transgender Jews, arguing that
institutional Judaism’s normative framework, which values cisgender bodies and binary
gender, may result in assimilating transgender Jews into normative Judaism, or more
radically, ostracizing them. In contrast to this assimilative approach for incorporating
transgender Jews, I map the ways transgender Jews have created affirmation for
themselves within Judaism through innovating rituals that engage Jewish tradition to
celebrate transgender identities and lives.

vi
Table of Contents

Title Page – i

Signature Page – ii

Acknowledgements – iii

Dedication – iv

Abstract – v

Table of Contents – vii

Introduction – 1

Chapter 1 – 19
Outsiders & Insiders: LGBTQ/Jewish Organizations, Inclusion, and Community Building

Chapter 2 – 50
Off the Record: Israel/Palestine & Queer Jewish Politics, Ethics, and Activism

Chapter 3 – 128
Normative Judaism and the Assimilation/Affirmation of Transgender Jews

Chapter 4 – 165
Transition and Transformation: Creating a Transgender Affirming Judaism

Conclusion – 200

Appendices – 204

vii
Introduction
Undeniably a number of momentous advancements have been made for lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals within American Judaism in
the last forty-five years. The world’s first LGBTQ synagogue, Beth Chayim Chadashim
(BCC) in Los Angeles, was founded independently in 1972.1 Soon after, BCC became
officially affiliated with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now known as
the Union for Reform Judaism.2 Openly lesbian and gay rabbis have been permitted to
undergo ordination within Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism since the 1980s, and
within Conservative Judaism since 2006. Elliot Kukla, the first out transgender rabbi, was
also ordained in 2006. Most recently, a 2014 survey conducted by the Public Religion
Research Institute concluded that 77% of American Jews support legalizing same-sex
marriage.3 However, what these examples occlude is the reality that many LGBTQ Jews
remain alienated by Jewish institutions that are indifferent or merely tolerant toward
LGBTQ Jews rather than inclusive or affirming. As Caryn Aviv, Gregg Drinkwater, and
David Shneer have reported, even Jewish institutions that believe themselves to be
inclusive are frequently seen as less so by LGBTQ Jews.4 I argue that part of what creates

1 BCC refers to itself as the first LGBTQ synagogue, but by some accounts Congregation
Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in New York started virtually simultaneously.
2 For a more complete history of BCC’s, visit their website: http://www.bcc-
la.org/about/history/
3 Robert Jones, “Attitudes on Same-sex Marriage by Religious Affiliation and
Denominational Family,” PRRI, available from https://www.prri.org/spotlight/attitudes-
on-same-sex-marriage-by-religious-affiliation-and-denominational-family/, accessed
May 3, 2017.
4 Caryn Aviv, Gregg Drinkwater, and David Shneer. “We Are You: An Exploration of
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues in Colorado’s Jewish Community”
(Denver: Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, 2006), 2.
1
this disparity in perception is that institutional efforts toward “inclusion” often do not
meet LGBTQ Jews on their own terms but rather aim to assimilate them into normative,
mainstream Judaism. Ironically, instead of growing the numbers of LGBTQ Jews, this
approach may alienate them from institutional Judaism.
This work reflects ethnographic research conducted between 2013-2016, which
documented the religious lives of my participants: LGBTQ Jews in Boston and Los
Angeles. Fieldwork for this project included observations and seventy-one semi-
structured interviews with research participants. I also attended a wide range of events
including services at LGBTQ and mainstream synagogues, Shabbat dinners, meetings of
LGBTQ and/or Jewish organizations, a visit to an egalitarian mikveh (Jewish ritual bath),
a discussion amongst rabbis on transgender inclusion normally closed to the public, and
other miscellaneous community events. Extant ethnographic projects on LGBTQ
religious individuals have often focused on congregations and congregants; however, this
study follows individuals and communities, taking a “lived religions” approach in order
to understand the everyday religious lives of participants outside of institutions as well as
within them.
The first chapter of this work examines the ways in which Judaism and Jewish
organizations foster LGBTQ Jewish community, and support LGBTQ inclusion. I
consider two LGBTQ Jewish organizations: Keshet (“rainbow” in Hebrew) in Boston and
JQ International (frequently referred to as JQ) in Los Angeles, both of which offer
inclusion consultation services to mainstream synagogues, Jewish schools, and camps,
aiming to transform these institutions into inclusive environments for LGBTQ people.
2