According to Miryam Kabakov, executive director of ten-year-old Orthodox LGBTQ+ organization Eshel, the Orthodox community has become exceedingly more open over the past decade.
“When we started,” she says, “Orthodox communities were not really addressing LGBTQ inclusion as something they needed to do.” Now, Eshel’s Welcoming Shuls project reports that over 140 Orthodox synagogues across North America are willing to engage in dialogue with the organization about how to be more inclusive and to work toward adhering to their Principles of Inclusion.
