Transgender Rabbinical Students Finding Equality in the Jewish World

[Butterfly]

Transgender Rabbinical Students Finding Equality in the Jewish World
Jewish Journal
by Jessica Pauline Ogilvie, Contributing Writer
11 May, 2010


http://www.jewishjournal.com/community/article/transgender_rabbinical_students_finding_equality_in_the_jewish_world_201005/


As a child, Reuben Zellman found life anything but cut-and-dry. "I've always had a complicated gender identity," he said. "As a kid, I liked both boys' and girls' clothes, and both boys' and girls' toys."

At 20, Reuben — who grew up as Claire — made the decision to begin living life as a man. "That's what was right for me," he said simply, declining to elaborate on his personal history.

Several years later, he said, he found his calling: to become a rabbi. In 2003, Zellman became the first transgender rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and, for that matter, in the entire Jewish community.