Exodus: Chelsea's LGBT Synagogue Finds a Message in the Flight from Egypt
By: Ari Paul
March 6, 2006 06:40 AM | Permalink
In every generation Jews are commanded to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt in ways that are relevant to their lives. Standing in that tradition, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum used the Biblical story to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, New York’s gay, lesbian and transgender congregation.
“In every generation we are required to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt,” she said during a recent Friday night service marking the anniversary at the Church of the Holy Apostles at 296 9th Avenue in Chelsea. “Telling this story is essential to our survival as a people.”
Kleinbaum stood before the congregation with two gay pride flags and an Israeli flag behind her. She explained how the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt is related to this congregation remembering the struggle for a homosexual and Jewish identity.
“Coming out,” she said in reference to being openly homosexual, “is a great act of liberation.”
In 1973, she said, an Indian Jew named Jacob Gubbay put a small classified ad in the Village Voice asking for gay Jews who were not welcome at other New York congregations to come together for a Shabbat service at the Chelsea church were the congregation still meets, along with its smaller West Village location. She called this ad a small step towards liberation.
“The number of people who say they were at that service far exceeds the 10 people I know who where there,” she said as the congregation chuckled.
While the gay rights movement was growing in New York, in the fall of 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Those two events sparked many gay Jews to become more involved in Judaism.
Kleinbaum asked people who joined the gay congregation in 1973 to stand, and only a few of the nearly 100 people in the congregation stood up. She moved on to1974, 1975 and so forth, going through all 33 years that have passed. When she said 2006, the last people seated came to their feet.
Recalling the exodus from Egypt every year, Kleinbaum said, was important because it would inspire Jews to address the struggle of all people who were oppressed. While this congregation has grown, some of its leadership still faces resistance for forming a community that is deeply Jewish and openly homosexual. One rabbi at the congregation, Rabbi Ayelet Cohen was censured in 2005 by the Conservative Jewish movement, to which she belongs, for conducting gay marriages and for breaking other procedural rules of Rabbinical Assembly. In 2004, she told the New York Times that she feared legal consequences for performing such ceremonies in the state.
But the story of the exodus was also meant to inspire the congregation to remember those in the community who have died of AIDS and to inspire them to volunteer at the church’s soup kitchen, the second largest in the nation.
“It’s criminal that this is still necessary in 2006,” she said in reference to the city’s homeless problem.