Rabbi's Column
April Fool's, Gay Pride, Jerusalem, and Us

On April 1 of this year, I received an email message, along with all of my colleagues in the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, from the UJC. This stands for the United Jewish Communities, and, in the alphabet soup of Jewish organizational acronyms, it is a newbie, formed recently with the merger of the UJA (as in Appeal) and another continent-wide communal organization as the umbrella group for Jewish communal funds. It also organizes travel and support missions to Israel.

Even though it was clearly a mass mailing, I paid careful attention to this email, astonished as I was by the headline, and the opening paragraphs, of the message:

"United Jewish Communities (UJC) will sponsor one of the first-ever missions for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in North America. Hundreds will travel to Israel this summer August 14-21, for a precedent-setting mission unique in kind and scope.

The mission, to be centered in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with excursions throughout the country, will include programming with leading Israeli politicians and government officials, civil rights activists, students, soldiers, educators, and others in Israel's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The mission will give participants a full measure of the spectrum of LGBT life in the Jewish homeland, and a broader look at how the changing geo-political situation in the Middle East affects Israelis."

Further on, we learn that participating in the mission would be US Congressman Barney Frank, and Rabbi Steven Greeenberg, who was featured in the ground-breaking film, Trembling Before G-d, a documentary about gay and lesbian Jews in the Orthodox community, and is the author of "Wrestling With God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition" (University of Wisconsin Press, February 2004).

I was almost fooled! It all read like a perfect institutional press release. MajorJewish communal institutions, especially the UJC, would never do something so "out there," I was certain. But the writer certainly had the right touches, choosing excellent public figures to include. Quite convincing. I chuckled, and sighed.

Further, I thought, given the picture on the front page of the New York Times just two days before, the timing of the "spoof" press release made even more sense. In that photo, all of the religious leaders of Jerusalem, representing Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, were pictured smiling and standing together.

Also a first!

But they were not standing together in the interest of Middle East peace. These men of diverse and often conflictual faith traditions had come together to denounce, as one, in unity, the forthcoming celebration of World Pride in Jerusalem that summer.

So it was utterly logical for me to think what a perfect April Fool's message to send to us, especially in light of the other one our RRA director had sent out the day before. Last month's Kehillah Connection ran that release; in it, all three branches of our movement declared its full support for World Pride in Jerusalem, and strongly condemned the actions of the Jerusalem clergymen.
Imagine my surprise when, a few days later, further copies of the UJC message crossed my desk, including one from a local activist planning to attend. I re-read the message, and then looked carefully at the sender's address - yes, it really did come from the UJC. It wasn't a spoof! The mainstream Jewish community was acknowledging, at the crux of one of its most visible programs, the presence, vitality, and centrality of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews in its midst, and in Israel!

The fact that World Pride has rescheduled its celebration for the summer of 2006, in light of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza now to take place in August, makes this all more poignant, but no less meaningful. The organizers of World Pride determined that it would be imprudent for its events to take place around those same dates, and after difficult deliberations, declined to go forward with its events in a country already experiencing massive protests and acts of civil disobedience on the part of those resisting the withdrawal.*

Would that those religious men had offered true words of peace and unity, igniting tolerance instead of hatred, acceptance instead of rejection, inclusion instead of separation. While we may feel unsure or distanced from the work of the UJC, or confused about the actions of a particular Israeli government, we can all feel proud to be connected to both of those entities - that is, Diaspora Jewry and Israel - through our Reconstructionist banner. **

It's no joke.
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* For more information about World Pride, visit: www.glbtjews.org
Web Site of The World Congress of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Jews - Keshet Ga'avah

** To learn about the work of our movement's Israel commission, visit:
www.jrf.org