opinions & letters
Assault on LGBTQ Rights
Must be Countered
Rabbi Benjamin David
A s we approach Pride Month, we are collectively
witnessing a widespread public assault on LGBTQ
rights. As a rabbi, this terrifies me, as it should you.

Recent legislation enacted in Florida forbids teachers
from using the word “gay,” denies the public appearance
of drag shows, limits pronoun usage to those associated
with one’s biological sex and instructs teachers not to
educate children on matters relating to sex or sexuality
that are outside of heterosexual practice.

These laws, in addition to similar measures set to
take effect in Texas, fly in the face of my understand-
ing of Judaism, human rights and basic decency. This
Pride Month, against this heinous backdrop of intoler-
ance, we are obligated to recommit ourselves to the
aggrieved LGBTQ community.

June has been recognized as Pride Month ever
since the Stonewall Riots in the summer of 1969. These
riots followed a police raid of the popular gay bar, the
Stonewall Inn in New York City; it was the birth of a
movement and a loud cry for acceptance. This came,
of course, at a time of great unrest and transition in the
United States, a time when marginalized communities
gained their voice and spoke unequivocal truths to
power. From Rosa Parks to Harvey Milk, change was
in the air.

We are the heirs of these change-makers. More
than 50 years since Stonewall, Pride Month becomes
an opportunity for us to re-up our commitment to and
support of the LGBTQ community.

We do this precisely as Jews. Indeed, as we were
strangers in the land of Egypt, we know well what it
means to be diminished, othered and cast out as threat-
ening and altogether dangerous. The Jewish story is no
doubt replete with instances in which we were made
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Shavuot begins on May 25.

Which dairy treat are you looking
forward to in celebration of the
giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai?
to feel less than, belittled and worse than that because
of how we looked, how we prayed, the holidays we
observed, the food we ate and the language(s) we
spoke. We know what it means to experience hate.

Amid the darkest chapter of our people, we were
dehumanized outright, turned into numbers and carica-
tures: a yellow star, a kippah, glasses and the stereo-
typical large nose. Our sense of self was denied as was
every Jewish soul’s distinctive identity, personality and
story. The Shoah so nearly erased Jews and Judaism
as a hate machine, with zero tolerance for difference,
sought to eradicate us once and for all. Thank God we
are still here and here to ensure that all peoples are
protected from ignorance and those set on persecution.

I come to Pride Month not only as a rabbi and a Jew,
not only as the grandson of Holocaust survivors but as
an engaged American citizen seeking a society predi-
cated on greater compassion and understanding. This
is the America in which I want my children to live. This
is the America in which I want our religious school and
nursery school children to live.

Pride Month has us recognize not only the extraor-
dinary contributions of the LGBTQ community to our
broader world but how our LGBTQ friends enrich our
synagogue life by their mere presence, life experience
and wisdom. We are commanded once and again to
“love our neighbor” and to “welcome the stranger,”
and I am glad that synagogues around the world have
moved gradually away from homophobic policy-mak-
ing and egregious exclusion. These profoundly Jewish
obligations are to transcend politics, our limited silos,
even our comfort level.

I write this at a moment in time that is wrought with
prejudicial thinking and the rights of the LGBTQ commu-
nity are very much in peril. When, in Florida alone, books
that educate children about LGBTQ relationships are
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Rabbi Benjamin David is the senior rabbi at Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel.

letters Israel’s Future in Doubt
Michael Oren, the author of “2048, the Rejuvenated
State,” must have written his book prior to Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest rejuvenation
(“What Will Israel Look Like in 2048?,” May 4).

After having given the settlers’ movement a green
light to not only expropriate land, the settlers have
destroyed Palestinian orchards. The extent of land
expropriation is such that a two-state solution is
impossible. Netanyahu is trying to eviscerate the Supreme
Court and avoid jail. Will the democratic state
even last till 2048? Oren describes the haredim
as an existential threat to the state of Israel. It’s all
concerning. Saving democracy, living with the Palestinians,
women’s rights, secular rights and non-Orthodox
rights are all at risk on this current trajectory. ■
Nathan Farbman, Philadelphia
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banned, gender-affirming therapies are outlawed and
personal pronouns are determined by the state rather
than the individual, we must say “‘enough!”
As people in power seek to shutter and/or boycott
businesses that are inclusive of the LGBTQ commu-
nities and politicians seek to undermine and devalue
people due to their sexuality, we must not look away.

Nor can we justify such behavior by selectively reading
our sacred texts while ignoring the massive tome of
laws repeatedly directing us to love, embrace and
support each other.

I take my cues from the great rabbinic sages who
preceded me — those who stood tall amid the civil
rights movement and as Russian Jewry was under
siege; they had the courage once and again to align
themselves with the maligned and stand up tall for the
mistreated. We all should. Now is the time. ■
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