It’s the season of the High Holidays for Jews around the world—and that means that Julie Silver, one of the most popular singers and songwriters of Jewish contemporary music — and a lesbian mom — is very busy. She took time, however, to speak with me about being a mom, balancing family and work, coming out, living as an interfaith family, and doing good in the world.
Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, so I’m honoring the occasion not only by baking (and eating) ridiculous amounts of challah and honey cake (a low-carb people we are not), but also by rounding up a few recent stories about Jewish lesbian moms.
There was so much good stuff going around for Mother’s Day that I neglected to share this great one-minute video from The Righteous Conversations Project, which brings together Holocaust survivors and teens to speak up about injustice. The video isn’t about the Holocaust, though; if anything, it’s about parental nagging in the age of social media. It comes via Keshet, the organization for LGBT inclusion in Jewish life—but I think it speaks to a commonality of many families.
Tomorrow, the Boy Scouts of America will be voting on a new policy that would lift the ban on gay scouts, while still banning gay and lesbian leaders. It’s a step in the right direction, but still an insult to gay scouts who will never be able to become leaders, and to those who have lesbian or gay parents, as I wrote when they first proposed it. Take action today to tell the Boy Scouts to allow gay scouts and leaders.
The Boy Scouts of America have proposed a policy change that would allow gay Scouts in their ranks, but would continue to deny leadership positions to “open or avowed homosexuals.” This policy is both a step forward and a slap in the face.
You likely know about Heather Has Two Mommies, the classic children’s book featuring a girl with lesbian moms. But did you know author Lesléa Newman is also the author of two Passover-themed picture books?
Hanukkah starts this weekend, which means my yearly request to my spouse that we celebrate our combined traditions by buying one of those plastic Santa-and-sleigh lawn ornaments and making the reindeer noses all light up over eight nights. (Rudolph himself, of course, would be the shamash.) Timely, then, is this video from Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, senior rabbi at the largest LGBT congregation in the world, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City—and also a lesbian mom.
The Boy Scouts of America are an anti-gay organization. They don’t allow gay scouts—even ones about to get their Eagle awards. They kick out gay dads and lesbian moms who are leading their children’s dens and troops. But not all Scout leaders agree with the national policy, and some are speaking out.
The Boy Scouts’ Lincoln Heritage Council in Kentucky kicked Assistant Scoutmaster Greg Bourke out of his son’s troop last month, just because he is gay. Bourke, who has served the Scouts for five years, writes in a petition at Change.org that he has received “unanimous support from my Troop, Troop Committee, Church, Scouts, Scout Leaders and Scout Parents.”
