First Generation of Transgender Rabbis Claims Place at Bimah

[Shana A]

First Generation of Transgender Rabbis Claims Place at Bimah
Pushing Conversation on Gender in Jewish Community

By Naomi Zeveloff
Published July 15, 2013, issue of July 19, 2013.

http://forward.com/articles/180303/first-generation-of-transgender-rabbis-claims-plac/

When it comes to the acceptance of transgender Jews, the American Jewish community is itself in a moment of transition.

In 2008, Joy Ladin became the public face of transgender Judaism when she transitioned from male to female after receiving tenure at Yeshiva University's Stern College for Women. Five years later, there are at least six transgender rabbis and rabbis-in-training across the United States. Both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements have programs on transgender inclusion at synagogues and in seminaries.

Still, the tiny community of transgender Jews and their advocates say that the mainstream Jewish world has been slow to reach out to them. Even as non-Orthodox Judaism has embraced lesbians and gay men, transgender individuals pose a unique challenge to an ancient faith built on strict gender roles. "Parents who are perfectly liberal in most other respects don't necessarily want a trans person to be their kid's bar or bat mitzvah tutor or teach the teen youth group or to be hired as a rabbi," said Rabbi Jacob Staub, a professor at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College who co-founded a student and faculty group on transgender issues. "Inclusion will take time."

[Shana A]

New Generation of Transgender Rabbis Ties Jewish Practice and Gender Switch
Number of Ordained Rabbis Will Soon Double From 3 to 6

By Naomi Zeveloff
Published July 16, 2013, issue of July 19, 2013.

http://forward.com/articles/180503/new-generation-of-transgender-rabbis-ties-jewish-p/

In the next few years, the number of transgender rabbis in America is expected to double — from three to six.

The tiny cohort makes up a miniscule percentage of the rabbis graduating rabbinical school, but these individuals have already played a big role in their respective seminaries to provoke conversations about gender and Judaism. They're also paving the way for more transgender rabbis to come.

According to LGBT Jewish advocates, transgender issues are the "new frontier" for the mainstream non-Orthodox community, which has focused on incorporating lesbians and gays in the past several decades. Both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements have initiated programs on transgender inclusion.

Since 2003, the Conservative movement has deemed sexual reassignment surgery a key component of gender transition. But it could relax its halachic stance if it accepts a new legal opinion written by Leonard Sharzer, a bioethicist at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Sharzer argues that the Conservative movement should accept transgender Jews as the gender they identify with, regardless of surgical status; he says he will soon submit his opinion to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the Conservative movement's law-making body.

[DriftingCrow]

Transgender Rabbis, Rabbis-In-Training Gaining Recognition In The Jewish Community
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/22/transgender-rabbis_n_3634805.html?utm_hp_ref=transgender
Source: Huffington Post Author: None Listed

"The Jewish Daily Forward is profiling a series of six transgender rabbis and rabbis-in-training, all of whom are helping to drive the conversation on gender within the Jewish community. The new series will look "at how trans people are both creating their own communities and building on the success of the gay and lesbian rights movement to gain recognition in the Jewish mainstream," according to the Forward's Naomi Zeveloff, who is spearheading the project."