Gay Chutzpah: An LGBT Synagogue Thrives

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September 29, 2011
Interview with Moshe Shokeid by Susan Henking

A Gay Synagogue in New York
Moshe Shokeid
University of Pennsyvania Press (2002)

In 1973, a group of Jewish gay people—mostly men—gathered in New York City and created what eventually became Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. In the decades since then, the organization has burgeoned, and been a leader both within Judaism and within the LGBTQ movement.

The congregation is also known to some—perhaps many—because of an ethnography undertaken by an Israeli anthropologist who specialized in migration, but became intrigued with the congregation when in New York. Moshe Shokeid, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, wrote A Gay Synagogue in New York, a study based on participant observation and interviews with congregants in 1989.

The book has since been reissued twice, and Shokeid has continued to publish in related areas. Looking back across the decades, much has changed for CBST, as much has changed in terms of what is published regarding LGBT matters and religion. I spoke to Shokeid in the summer of 2011.

Susan Henking: You open your book, A Gay Synagogue in New York, by asking “How did a mainstream Israeli anthropologist come to study a gay synagogue in New York?” As you reflect on that same question now, some years later, how do you see that choice and its impact on you?

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/sexandgender/5065/gay_chutzpah%3A_an_lgbt_synagogue_thrives/

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