Passover begins this Wednesday! How might we LGBTQ families use the traditional “Four Questions” of the holiday to guide our modern-day journeys? Here are my suggestions, slightly revised from a piece I wrote a few years ago.
Purim, which starts this evening, is perhaps the queerest Jewish holiday, with a theme of coming out and a tradition of costume wearing. Celebrate with a queer-inclusive Purim kids’ book and books by a Jewish drag queen—and consider fulfilling the holiday’s charitable obligation by supporting drag story times for kids!
Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from slavery, starts this weekend—and yes, there are a few (very few) queer-inclusive picture books about the holiday. There are none that I know of about Easter, alas (but I’ll share an idea for one)!
Bethany Christian Services, the largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency in the U.S., announced yesterday that it will begin placing children with LGBTQ parents nationwide, reports the New York Times.
PJ Library, which sends free books to families raising Jewish kids, has included a board book with a two-mom family in this month’s shipment to families with 1-year-olds—marking a striking change from how the organization handled a book with a two-dad family just a few years ago.
Hanukkah starts tonight, but LGBTQ parents will have to look long and hard to find even a glimpse of a family like theirs in a picture book about the holiday. One book slipped under my radar until recently, and while it still only offers a brief glance, it’s just about all we’ve got.
A gorgeous new picture book brings us along with the celebration as a Hindu girl attends the wedding of her cousin Ritu to another woman and stands up against those who would stop them.
Very often, faith and LGBTQ identities are seen in opposition. A new picture book, however, celebrates both the Jewish spiritual tradition and families of all types, including ones with same-sex and gender non-conforming parents and Jewish families of color. The two Jewish authors—one Black, in a different-sex relationship, and one White, in a same-sex one—shared with me a little about their motivation for writing it.
A family’s annual celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the changes that each year brings, form the texture of a new picture book about a Jewish family and their transgender child. One of the authors, Rabbi Ari Moffic, spoke with me about it.
I’ve been celebrating the spring holidays with my interfaith family and reflecting that Passover and Easter this year come in the shadow of ongoing and spiteful religious exemption laws in a growing number of states and in the federal government. These laws, widely seen as targeting the LGBTQ community, would allow people to cite their religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against others. I have to remind myself, however, that we shouldn’t set religion and LGBTQ equality as necessarily opposing forces.
