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By Steve Israel

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CHAPTER FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status in Judaism and the Jewish World

C: EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

25. On Gay Jews [Section 7]
(About two hours)

See: Notes to the Educator

• Ask the group how homosexuality is viewed in Judaism, taking short responses from those participants who have something to say immediately.
  • Introduce the following three texts, two from the Torah and one from the later Halachah.
  • With group participation, try and work out, using the texts, why the subject has traditionally been seen as so problematic in Judaism.
  • Bring in the analysis from the background section.

  Do not lie with a woman as you lie with a man. That is detestable.
  Vayikra 18:22

  If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death. Their blood will be on their own heads.
  Vayikra 20:13

  Women are forbidden to engage in lesbian practices with one another these being the “doings of Egypt”, against which we have been warned, as it is said: “You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 18:3).
  Our Sages have said: “What did they do? A man would marry a man, or a woman a woman, or a woman would marry two men”. Although such an act is forbidden, the perpetrators are not liable for a flogging since there is no specific commandment forbidding it, nor is actual intercourse of any kind involved.
  Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Issurei Biah 21:8

• Mention that it is interesting to see how the Jewish community relates or doesn't relate to homosexuality today, and that the aim is to focus on these issues at the existential, rather than the personal level.
• Now do one of two things:
  Either (get hold of and) show the film, “Trembling before G-d” directed by Sandi Dubowski;
  or bring one of the two articles mentioned in the bibliography for individual reading in the group:
  Naomi Grossman. The Gay Orthodox Underground.
  (Moment Magazine. April 2001)
  or
  Rabbi Yaakov Levado [Isolated Yaakov – a pseudonym].
  Wrestlings of an Orthodox Rabbi. (Tikkun Magazine. Sept/Oct 2000).
• Whichever vehicle is used, the subject is the same: the plight of Orthodox Jews who are struggling with the fact that they are gay. After viewing, or reading, the members of the group should take time to prepare written responses to what they have read or seen.
• Closure:
  • In a mature group, some participants wish to share any excerpts from their written responses and this can lead to noting the differences or commonalities in defining and addressing the issues, sharing impressions and implications;
  • If this kind of closure is not appropriate, it is possible to either:
    Ask whether anyone wishes to offer observations on how well the issues have been treated in the film/article, and address the wider implications together;
    or
    Ask whether the group learned something new from the texts and the film/article and list the central messages and implications within them.