Nehirim

Nehirim Southeast in Atlanta

marlene — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:18:13 +0000

Nehirim Southeast
November 19-21, 2010
Camp Twin Lakes, Atlanta

The first annual Nehirim Southeast Retreat is a weekend of spirituality, culture, relaxation and fun for GLBT Jews, partners, and allies.

Join us for…

…a diverse community of 100 LGBT Jews, partners, & families ranging in age from 18-75; orthodox to atheist; gay men, lesbians, genderqueers, bisexuals, transgender folk, straight allies; singles, familes, couples (including many non-Jewish partners). Whoever you are, there are people like you at Nehirim!

-…spirituality from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance; Hasidic melodies and alternative ritual; secular Torah study and honoring the Divine Feminine. No Hebrew knowledge required.

…a wide range of programs and workshops — some are spiritual, some are just good fun; you can stretch your mind or stretch your body; and of course there’s plenty of free time to relax and connect.

…teachers from a broad range of religious & secular backgrounds (see below for list). Rabbis, drag queens, professors, queer activists — our faculty includes the most innovative and interesting queer Jewish teachers in the world.

This page will be updated in August with further information and registration for the retreat.

Pricing:

Camp bunks (quads): $175
Triple (shared bath): $275
Double (shared bath): $325
Double (private bath): $375
Single (private bath): $475
Kosher food supplement: $75

(Default food will be vegetarian)

Retreat Co-Directors

Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is the founder and executive director of Nehirim. For the last ten years, Jay has been a leading advocate for the inclusion of sexual minorities in religious communities, and writes and teaches frequently on issues of sexuality and religion. His work on the subject has appeared on NPR, and in Tikkun, the Jerusalem Post, the Duke Law Review, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, and anthologies including Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer (2004), Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice(2007) and Jews and Sex (2008). Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper, Tikkun, and Reality Sandwich magazine, and a featured contributor to the Huffington Post. He is the author of God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice (Jewish Lights, 2006), Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007), and Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009).

Rabbi Joshua Lesser

Rabbi Joshua Lesser leads Atlanta’s growing Congregation Bet Haverim as a place dedicated to celebrating all aspects of Jewish life and creating a spiritual home that is accessible to those who have not connected in other settings. As a former Teach For America corps member, Rabbi Lesser is committed to creating innovative programs and events to further their Jewish education in fun and exciting ways. At Bet Haverim, he has worked with a wide variety of groups and coalitions to build a better community for Atlanta, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s Task Force on Healing and Spirituality. In partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and Jewish Family & Career Services, he founded The Rainbow Center, a place of support and information for GLBTQ people, as well as their families.

Teachers and Presenters

Rabbi Aaron Katz

My name is Aaron Katz,. After 30 years in the Rabbinate, my partner and I decided to move from California to Florida. I was born in Argentina and moved to Israel in 1974 where I received my rabbinical diploma”Smicha”by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. In 1979 I was appointed the Orthodox Rabbi of Stockholm and Sweden where I lived for the next 14 years. From there I was working in Israel, Germany, Spain and California. While in Los Angeles, I was teaching at the Rabbinical School, was a scholar in residence in different communities,worked as the researcher and historian for the “Rashi’s Daughters” trilogy and was leading two communities. Through my travels I began to understand that Judaism is not just a question of color, political affiliation or a group association. Judaism is a question of identity. We need to bring to our members a feeling of belonging, a connection to our past and a eye toward the future.

Rabbi Joshua Lesser

marlene — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:23:58 +0000

LGBT Shabbat Dinner in Miami

marlene — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:05:22 +0000

Friday, August 27, 7:30pm

Please join us for Shabbat dinner with guest speaker, Johanna Rachel Taraslewicz who will discuss Jewish Poland today. Johanna has lived in Krakow and Warsaw and discovered her Jewish roots several years ago. She is the author of the book, Mama.

Contact Rabbi Aaron Katz at miami@nehirim.org for more information.

Prepare for the High Holidays with R. Aaron Katz in Miami

marlene — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:59:15 +0000

Thursday, August 19, 7:30pm

It’s that time again, high holiday time! In preparation we will discuss the history, ritual and liturgy of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar.

Contact Rabbi Aaron Katz at miami@nehirim.org for more information

Nehirim/CBST Farewell to Summer Barbecue on the Lower East Side

marlene — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:04:25 +0000

Monday, August 23 @ 7pm – East River Park, NYC

It’s been a scorching summer — come bid an ambivalent farewell to the season with CBST and Nehirim’s New York community. We’ll have all varieties of kosher meat and vegetarian BBQ options plus lots of fun LGBT Jewish folks. We are asking for advance reservations and a small fee to cover costs, but it’s a suggested donation only. The BBQ is BYOB: Bring Your Own Beverage — please bring a bottle/6-pack of non-alcoholic beverage to share with the group.

The barbecue is in East River Park on the Lower East Side. The park is a 10 minute walk from the Essex/Delancey F/J/M/Z stop — just walk on Delancey south of the bridge toward Brooklyn, until you get to the water. The best way to get there is by bike — it’s right on the East River Bikeway!

For more information: info@nehirim.org or info@cbst.org

Registration will be up the first week of August.

LGBT Convening: Why They Came

marlene — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:24:12 +0000

LGBT Convening: Why They Came

By Gabriel Blau

From June 27-29, dozens of Jewish LGBT organizations are gathering in Berkeley, CA for the first-ever “LGBT Jewish Movement-Building Convening.” Gabriel Blau, a conference participant and the founder of GayGevalt.com, is blogging about the gathering for The Shmooze. You can read his first post here and follow the conversation on Twitter here.

If you think it’s hard to get a consensus from a group of Jews, try a group of Jews that have committed themselves to the LGBTQ Jewish community. Let’s just put it out there: Us non-heteros are not an easy bunch. We’ve got ideas, visions and commitments. We are still discriminated against in the law as well as in our culture. We have a fine-tuned sense of acceptance and equality. And if you’re one of the people who has made Jewish LGBTQ issues part of their professional or semi-professional lives, you also have a healthy ego — a requirement in a field that is constantly shifting. Wonderfully, there seems to be none of that here.

The people who are at the Convening, and many who are not here, have achieved incredible things. They have organized conferences, founded shuls, grown organizations, changed politics, saved people’s lives, and even had a lot of fun doing it. But this conference is an attempt to do more than that — to bring together the leaders of a maturing movement to work together more than they already are. To better understand their efforts, I asked a few of my colleagues to share what brought them here.

“The opportunity to work together, collaborate, be strategic, and deliberate,” said Michael Hopkins, Chair of the Board of Directors of Nehirim. “It’s really clear there are a lot of people around the country doing a lot of things, and we just don’t all know what’s going on with each other. With limited human and financial resources, and growing needs, this work is as important as ever.”

For Rabbi Dev Noily, director of the Kehilla Community Synagogue School in Oakland, CA, coming here is a part of her job, and a good one. “I’ve been doing Queer Jewish work for almost 20 years,” she said. “These are my people and I’m curious about what other people are doing. I’m excited about sharing what are the fruits of a few decades of Jewish creative Queer work.”

“I came to recommit my rabbinate to Queer movement building with an eye to inclusion of trans, multi-ethnic and multiracial Jews,” added Rabbi Joshua Lesser, leader of Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta, GA.

Rabbi David Mitchell of Radlett & Bushey Reform Synagogue came from the UK to observe and participate. “I wanted to see what’s going on in America, see what we can learn, how we can grow, and what alliances we can build,” he said. “Just to feel part of a bigger network.”

My Take: Jewish LGBT Leaders Need to Build a Movement

marlene — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:00:48 +0000

Drinkwater (left) and Michaelson both work to build an inclusive
LGBT community within the Jewish faith.Gregg Drinkwater is Deputy Director of Keshet, dedicated to creating an inclusive American Jewish community for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Jews. Jay Michaelson is Executive Director of Nehirim, a national organization building community for LGBT Jews, partners and allies. More information at www.jewishinclusion.com

By Gregg Drinkwater and Jay Michaelson, Special to CNN

The American Jewish community is generally more progressive than other religious groups when it comes to gay issues.

All movements except Orthodoxy (which represents about 10% of American Jews) now ordain gay and lesbian rabbis, and perform same-sex weddings. There are gay synagogues, national LGBT Jewish organizations and a bevy of local groups ranging from TransTorah (learning opportunities for transgender Jews) to He’Bro (dance parties for gay Jewish men).

The trouble is that we do not speak with a unified voice.

Indeed, one of the strengths–and weaknesses–of contemporary Judaism is its decentralized nature. On the one hand, this means that divergence of opinion and practice is much easier to accommodate than in organizations like the Catholic Church. On the other hand, well, you know the joke: two Jews, three opinions.

Because of its decentralized nature, the Jewish community’s progressivism rarely translates into effective political muscle, or intra-communal organizing. Nor is there a unified agenda for what “inclusion” really means. Should limited resources be focused on creating safe schools, and safe summer camps for kids? (Anti-gay epithets are still very common among American Jewish teens.)

Or should a focus be placed on Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities, where children are still being disowned by their parents or sent to abusive and ineffective “reparative therapy” programs?

To address these questions, over 100 LGBT Jewish leaders are gathering in Berkeley, California, to build a stronger and more unified LGBT Jewish movement. Coming together for this historic LGBT Jewish Movement Building Retreat are activists representing 40 different LGBT Jewish organizations from throughout the United States.

Together with leaders from an additional 22 national and regional Jewish and LGBT organizations, foundation professionals and several international observers, those gathering in Berkeley want to define and energize the movement for LGBT inclusion in the Jewish world.

This convening builds on a long and proud history of LGBT Jewish organizing, which began nearly 40 years ago with the founding of gay and lesbian synagogues as safe havens for gay Jews. Synagogues (and their umbrella organization, the World Congress of GLBT Jews) have been and remain vital “safe spaces” for LGBT Jews, even as national organizations have grown and activists have worked for full inclusion and equality within “mainstream” institutions.

So, what are we, as two of the organizers of the convening, hoping comes out of the three days’ worth of meetings in Berkeley?

First, connection, conversation and community. This is a historic gathering – many of us have never met face to face, and we come from very different religious and cultural backgrounds. Just being in the same place at the same time is a key first step.

From that connection, we hope that participants will gain a renewed sense of themselves as part of a movement, rather than freelance activists or clergy members with responsibility only toward their synagogues’ membership. We are going to roll out practical proposals, from a unified online calendar and blogging software to ongoing working groups, to enable better coordination and communication.

We’re aiming for nothing less than a “consciousness shift” among LGBT Jewish leadership in the United States.

And finally, from that sense of ourselves as a movement, we hope to emerge with a unified agenda for change – or at least steps in that direction. There has been generous philanthropic support of LGBT Jewish activism. On Monday, a Funders’ Roundtable brought together the leading funders of this work for the first time – and we have achieved many of our goals. There’s a real sense that now is our moment to come together and set our priorities for the next decade.

There is, indeed, so much work still to be done. Just 10 months ago, an unknown gunman killed two people and injured many more at a Tel Aviv drop-in center for LGBT youth.

Gay people are still vilified and demonized by rabbis and communal leaders around the world – including the American Orthodox Union, which has recently put out a series of anti-gay statements. And as you read these words, somewhere, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish teenager, without access to the Internet or contemporary media, is wondering if he is the only gay Jew in the world, and if God hates him because he is gay.

This is why we’re gathering in Berkeley.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gregg Drinkwater and Jay Michaelson.

Boston Trans and Queer Beit Midrash: Radical Adornment and Redemptive Identity: Finding Femme in Midrash

Esther Smigel — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:04:13 +0000

Trans & Queer Beit Midrash – Radical Adornment & Redemptive Identity: Finding Femme in Midrash

July 28, 6-9pm

Join us for a conversation about butch and femme identities through a Jewish lens. Drawing from the ancient Midrashic tradition and the modern “midrash” of Joan Nestle and Leslie Feinberg, we will examine the rich history of the unique Butch-Femme Jewish canon, and explore modern perspectives about the overlap of these identities. Jewish and gender enthusiasts of all levels appreciated and encouraged. Teaching by Hebrew College rabbinical student Margot Meitner.

Presented by TransTorah, Keshet & Nehirim with support from CJP.

RSVP: by 7/27: email Joanna at joanna@keshetonline.org for address.

Second Annual Nehirim West Reunion Dinner in San Francisco

Esther Smigel — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:59:00 +0000

Second Annual Nehirim West Reunion Dinner: A vegetarian potluck hosted by Elana Robinson-Lynch and Ilana Sherer at their home in San Francisco. Everyone who came to Nehirim West 2010 is warmly invited to join us!

There will be a short service led by Zvi Bellin, followed by food and schmoozing. Please bring a vegetarian dish to share.

When?: Friday, July 23rd @ 6:30pm

Where?: Contact us for address information and to RSVP at info@nehirim.org

LGBT Shabbat Dinner and Tisch with R. Aaron Katz in Miami

Esther Smigel — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:26:45 +0000

LGBT Shabbat Dinner and Tisch with R. Aaron Katz in Miami:

Join your fellow LGBT Jews for a wonderful Shabbat dinner and “Tisch” featuring delicious food, beautiful singing, and fabulous company. Meet new friends and reconnect with old ones!

When?: Friday, July 16th, 7:30pm

Where?: Miami Area (location provided upon RSVP)

Contact Rabbi Aaron Katz at miami@nehirim.org for more information and to RSVP