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!
Shana tova u’metukah—a good and sweet year—to all those celebrating Rosh Hashanah today! Here are some readings and recipes for queer families and others during the High Holiday season, including the apple-cinnamon challah pictured here!
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.
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.
When my son celebrated his bar mitzvah three years ago, our household was a whirlwind of practice and preparation. All the more reason I’m impressed by the feats of a two-mom family whose four kids all celebrated becoming b’nai mitzvah on the same day.
This landscape is familiar, strewn with ash and blood. We’ve been here before, too often, seeking the living, counting our dead. I know the terrain, can pick my way stumbling over the bodies, the stench of fear and hatred lingering in the air; the thoughts and prayers; the headlines and statistics.
As a Jew and as a human, I have been saddened and angered today by the awful shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. And I wonder at the unending number of shootings in a country that is supposed to be a beacon of freedom and justice and ask myself: When will we have had enough?
The Jewish High Holiday season is this week, so let’s take a look at some new stories that feature queer, Jewish families, including a children’s picture book and a grown-up memoir by a woman with four lesbian moms.
