Author: Rebecca Trachtenberg Alpert
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813529165
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
The office of rabbi is the most visible symbol of power and prestige in Jewish communities. Rabbis both interpret to their congregations the requirements of Jewish life and instruct congregants in how best to live this life. Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation documents a monumental change in Jewish life as eighteen lesbian rabbis reflect on their experiences as trailblazers in Judaism's journey into an increasingly multicultural world. In frank and revealing essays, the contributors discuss their decisions to become rabbis and describe their experiences both at the seminaries and in their rabbinical positions. They also reflect on the dilemma whether to conceal or reveal their sexual identities to their congregants and superiors, or to serve specifically gay and lesbian congregations. The contributors consider the tensions between lesbian identity and Jewish identity, and inquire whether there are particularly "lesbian" readings of traditional texts. These essays also ask how the language of Jewish tradition touches the lives of lesbians and how lesbianism challenges traditional notions of the Jewish family. "'Today I am completely 'out' personally and professionally, and yet I have learned that the 'coming out' process never ends. Even today, I find myself in professional situations in which yet again I must reveal that I am a lesbian, yet again I must prove myself worthy of functioning professionally in the 'straight' world. I still encounter moments of awkwardness, some hostility, and some sense of exclusion as I negotiate the pathways of my professional life."-Rabbi Leila Gal Berner, from Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation
Author: Rachel Lewis
Publisher: Ladiesladies Press
ISBN: 9781792356520
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Congregation Beth Abraham expected their newest rabbi to "sing some songs and go to an environmental rally." But Vivian Green has other ideas. She wants her flock to engage meaningfully with their city-special mayoral elections, interfaith breakfasts, fights for affordable housing and all. Also, she would like just one night off to go dancing in the leather boots that make her look like her finest gay self. Taking on the city's old boys' club is already proving difficult...but then Beth Abraham bursts into flames. Fingers get pointed, and everyone's biases rise to the surface. It turns out that wasn't the only fire burning in town. Vivian sticks to her instincts, raising tensions with her boss, her community, and a certain hottie in a power suit. And she learns that knowing whodunnit is only half the battle.
Author: Mary Zeiss Stange
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412976855
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2017
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Book Description
This work includes 1000 entries covering the spectrum of defining women in the contemporary world.
Author: Elliot N. Dorff
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827613873
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 504
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Book Description
A major Conservative movement leader of our time, Elliot N. Dorff provides a personal, behind-the-scenes guide to the evolution of Conservative Jewish thought and practice over the last half century. His candid observations concerning the movement's ongoing tension between constancy and change shed light on the sometimes unified, sometimes diverse, and occasionally contentious reasoning behind the modern movement's most important laws, policies, and documents. Meanwhile, he has assembled, excerpted, and contextualized the most important historical and internal documents in modern Conservative movement history for the first time in one place, enabling readers to consider and compare them all in context. In "Part 1: God" Dorff explores various ways that Conservative Jews think about God and prayer. In "Part 2: Torah" he considers different approaches to Jewish study, law, and practice; changing women's roles; bioethical rulings on issues ranging from contraception to cloning; business ethics; ritual observances from online minyanim to sports on Shabbat; moral issues from capital punishment to protecting the po∨ and nonmarital sex to same-sex marriage. In "Part 3: Israel" he examines Zionism, the People Israel, and rabbinic rulings in Israel.
Author: David J. Zucker
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532653247
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
This book is a broad-brush approach describing the realities of life in the American rabbinate. Factual portrayals are supplemented by examples drawn from fiction—primarily novels and short stories. Chapters include: ♣Rabbinic Training ♣Congregational Rabbis and Their Communities ♣Congregants’ Views of Their Rabbis ♣Women Rabbis [also including examples from TV and Cinema] ♣Assimilation, Intermarriage, Patrilineality, and Human Sexuality ♣God, Israel, and Tradition This book draws upon sociological data, including the recent Pew Research Center survey on Jewish life in America, and presents a contemporary view of rabbis and their communities. The realities of the American rabbinate are then compared/contrasted with the ways fiction writers present their understanding of rabbinic life. The book explores illustrations from two hundred novels, short stories, and TV/cinema; representing well over 135 authors. From the first real-life women rabbis in the early 1970s to today’s statistics of close to 1,600 women rabbis worldwide, major changes have taken place. Women rabbis are transforming the face of Judaism. For example, this newly revised second edition of American Rabbis: Facts and Fiction reflects a fivefold increase in terms of examples of fictional women rabbis, from when the book was first published in 1998. There is new and expanded material on some of the challenges in the twenty-first century, women rabbis, human sexuality/LGBTQ matters, trans/post/non-denominational seminaries, and community-based rabbis.
Author: Jonathan C. Friedman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739114483
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 218
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Book Description
Rainbow Jews deals with the intersection of gay and Jewish identity in American and Israeli film and theater, from the 1960s to the present. Its main area of interest is the extent to which Jewish creative voices in the performing arts have constructed multidimensional images of, and a welcoming public space for, the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community as a whole. Through a close reading of the texts of numerous American and Israeli plays and films (some famous, but mostly lesser known), the author evaluates some of the key conventions and tropes that have been employed to construct, critique, and reflect the social reality of the connection between Jewishness and gay identity in the United States and Israel. Secondarily, the author explores ways in which gay-Jewish playwrights and filmmakers have assisted the re-evaluation of sexual norms within Judaism over the past three decades, inspiring and reinforcing measures across the spectrum of belief geared towards integrating Jewish members of the GLBT community into the overall Jewish historical narrative.
Author: Jon Bloomberg
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
ISBN: 9780881258448
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
A comprehensive account of Jewish life and history in Europe, America, and Israel since the 18th century is accompanied by original sources documenting the events outlined in each chapter.
Author: Steven Greenberg
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299190935
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
For millennia, two biblical verses have been understood to condemn sex between men as an act so abhorrent that it is punishable by death. Traditionally Orthodox Jews, believing the scripture to be the word of God, have rejected homosexuality in accordance with this interpretation. In 1999, Rabbi Steven Greenberg challenged this tradition when he became the first Orthodox rabbi ever to openly declare his homosexuality. Wrestling with God and Men is the product of Rabbi Greenberg’s ten-year struggle to reconcile his two warring identities. In this compelling and groundbreaking work, Greenberg challenges long held assumptions of scriptural interpretation and religious identity as he marks a path that is both responsible to human realities and deeply committed to God and Torah. Employing traditional rabbinic resources, Greenberg presents readers with surprising biblical interpretations of the creation story, the love of David and Jonathan, the destruction of Sodom, and the condemning verses of Leviticus. But Greenberg goes beyond the question of whether homosexuality is biblically acceptable to ask how such relationships can be sacred. In so doing, he draws on a wide array of nonscriptural texts to introduce readers to occasions of same-sex love in Talmudic narratives, medieval Jewish poetry and prose, and traditional Jewish case law literature. Ultimately, Greenberg argues that Orthodox communities must open up debate, dialogue, and discussion—precisely the foundation upon which Jewish law rests—to truly deal with the issue of homosexual love. This book will appeal not only to members of the Orthodox faith but to all religious people struggling to resolve their belief in the scriptures with a desire to make their communities more open and accepting to gay and lesbian members. 2005 Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, for Religion/Spirituality
Author: Stephen Hunt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351924737
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 487
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Book Description
This volume on Judaism and Islam in The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion series overviews perceptions of human sexuality through two major monotheistic faiths, namely Judaism and Islam. Part 1 presents previously published articles on Judaism and sexuality from a historical perspective, in particular, through the writings of the Tanakh and traditional Judaic attitudes. Part 2 focuses more cogently on contemporary themes including both the contestation and defence of conventional Jewish standpoints on sexuality via orthodox and liberal renderings of the faith. Part 3 includes articles examining Islamic views of sexuality from a historical perspective. Here there is a special focus on the faith's construction of sexual categories, as well as the relationship between sexuality, gender and patriarchy. Part 4 takes a cross-cultural and global perspective of the subject with a particular emphasis on the connection between sexuality and moral regulation, besides scrutinising varying and contrasting cultural attitudes in Islamic communities today.
Author: David J. Fine
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0838100880
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
Passionate Centrism is an important discussion of Positive Historical Judaism and the benefit of holding the center of Judaism—that is, the Conservative Movement. This book is an important resource for clergy and other congregational leaders and is an excellent product for lecture series.
