Homosexual rabbis and cantors have long had two options: to keep their sexual orientation a carefully guarded secret or to work at one of the handful of gay and lesbian synagogues in North America.
The environment has been slowly changing, allowing some gay clergy to make their orientation known to their mainstream congregations without the admission ending their careers.
Their experiences, however, remain the exception.
Most gay clergy cannot reveal their identity.
“I only wish that the community understood how many of us are loyal and committed members who do not wish to be pushed out but who cannot sustain the contradiction of wanting in, to be part of this Jewish communal and religious world, when the message from it is so painful,” said one gay, Orthodox rabbi.
The rabbi, who is a public figure in a large city, spoke on condition of anonymity.
If his orientation were discovered, he said, “I would most likely lose my job and the ability to speak about anything. That’s not what I want for my life. I want to be able to teach Torah.”
For rabbis and cantors in the more liberal movements, coming out and being able to survive the controversy is slowly becoming a more realistic possibility.
But even in those congregations that accept spiritual leaders who are gay and lesbian, complex emotional issues arise when they become parents.
David Serkin-Poole, the cantor at Reform Temple B’nai Torah on Mercer Island, Wash., just outside of Seattle, says he was “deeply closeted” for many years.
No controversy erupted over his sexual orientation after he carefully broke the news to his board of directors and congregation — in fact, he got a standing ovation at the annual congregational meeting at which he made the announcement.
STRONG PUBLIC RESPONSE OF SUPPORT
But the following year, when he and his partner adopted the first of their three children, about 30 of the congregation’s 200 families began a campaign to have him fired.
After several months of tension and dissension, the board “issued a very strong public response of unequivocal support for me as their cantor, teacher, co-spiritual leader and director of education,” said Serkin-Poole, and those who tried to have him ousted left the temple.
The whole process, stressful though it was, has had a positive effect on his relationship with his congregation, he said, bringing them closer.
For Elizabeth Bolton, her lesbianism also only became an issue in her Conservative congregation when she became pregnant.
Bolton works as the cantor at Congregation Beth Am Israel, in Penn Valley, Pa., and is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
She and her partner thought they were “out” to everyone there. But when Bolton became pregnant and it became public soon after she had renewed her contract, the board of directors looked into having her fired, she said.
“We like her as a person,” said one board member. But Bolton’s pregnancy “has been a source of confusion. We’re all responding viscerally right now. It has made us realize that homosexual clergy is an issue we need to explore,” she said.
Bolton explained the congregation’s reaction this way; “Those who chose to ignore (the face that I am a lesbian) when I was not pregnant could do it. But a woman in a non-traditional relationship who is pregnant is throwing it in their faces.”
The approaches of Judaism’s denominations to gay and lesbian clergy vary greatly.
The Reform and Reconstructionist movements have been supportive of gay and lesbian clergy, in both principle and policy.
But despite the image of the Reform movement being the most open, it “doesn’t mean everything is hunky-dory,” said one Reform rabbi.
While an increasing number of Reform rabbinical students are “out,” many still shield themselves from potential controversy by keeping their sexual orientation secret.
Orthodox and Conservative rabbis and cantors, by and large, must continue to hide their sexual orientation if they want to keep their jobs.
Some marry and have families in an effort to play the expected role.
The Conservative movement was wracked with debate in 1991 and 1992 over whether Jewish law could be interpreted to mean that homosexuals may be spiritual leaders.
The movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards adopted the position that homosexual behavior is incompatible with living as an observant Jew, and therefore sexually active gays and lesbians may not work as religious leaders.
In the meantime, one Conservative rabbi whose orientation was disclosed without his consent was fired by his congregation.
EFFORT TO PLAY EXPECTED ROLE
Rabbi Howard Handler, who was employed by Manhattan’s Town and Village Synagogue, was not aided by the movement’s rabbinical organization when he tried to find another congregational job.
Instead, the placement committee allowed him to independently circulate his resume to congregations, which is technically prohibited by the committee’s rules.
Unable to find a pulpit, he tried his hand at real estate and is now attempting to find work as a public school teacher.
The atmosphere in the Conservative movement, say rabbis and students, is now one of fear; both those already ordained and rabbinical school students dare not allow their sexual orientation to become known for fear of suffering consequences similar to Handler’s.
That fear is magnified in the Orthodox world, where homosexuality is unequivocally rejected.
The Orthodox rabbi lives in fear that he will be “outed” as a gay man and be ostracized by his community.
“Fear of homosexuality is greatest in the Orthodox community because the notion that I construct my life on the basis of my needs is very Western,” he explained. “The traditionalist viewpoint is that your identity is not your own,” he said. People see this “as a direct challenge to the establishment of family.”
“They are assuming that gayness is basically about sexual liberation. It’s not,” he said. Gayness is about a different sexuality that can be sanctified by commitment, love, family and restraint.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
