Eshel Out Loud
News, Views, and Updates from the Eshel Community
Failure and Resilience
As I began the intensive preparations for Tisha B’av this year, marked by the start of the Nine Days, I was reminded of a Tisha B’av I spent twenty years ago in Jerusalem with twelve queer clergy. I had organized this trip to engage queer religious leaders with our shared Abrahamic roots, and open dialogue [more]
How Change Happens
How does a community as committed to preserving tradition as Orthodoxy change? In Orit Avishai’s recent book, Queer Judaism: LGBT Activism and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel, she seeks to answer how these changes came about in the Israeli Orthodox community. Based on her interviews, archival research, and meta-analysis, Avishai describes how one [more]
A Home to Come Back To
For the last fifteen years, I have worked in fundraising in primarily Orthodox spaces, where I asked for gifts for day schools, Yeshivas, social justice organizations, and special needs support. Throughout that time I saw myself as an outsider, strengthening Orthodoxy, but not feeling connected to it myself - since the Orthodoxy I was strengthening [more]
Change is in the Air
Two weeks later, I am still on a high from our Celebration of Eshel. It was an incredible, star-studded night. I’m so grateful that Modi, Leo Veiga, Talia Reese, and Rabbi Gavriel Bellino were able to be on stage with me, our amazing volunteers and staff, and our honorees to help celebrate Eshel’s incredible journey [more]