Another Bolshevik Jew?
Another Bolshevik Jew?
As a Jewish youth growing up in a Jewish household in Wakefield, Mass., having a bar mitzvah, attending Hebrew school and attending a conservative shul, Levine said the rabbi did not talk about LGBTQ issues. It was the late 1960s, early 1970s, she said, and things are only now getting better.
“Overall, our society is open to different gender norms, not just in Jewish culture,” she said, adding that Reform Judaism is a space where acceptance is happening, even if not in more Orthodox spaces, where constituents may be “less open to variation of gender.”
Her mom’s shul in Harrisburg, Temple Ohev Sholom, is headed by Rabbi Peter Kessler, who identifies as gay and who is greatly respected in the community and by Levine and her family.
“Change takes time,” she said, “and it’s happening in my lifetime.”
