Timeline Of LGBT Jewish History

This is a timeline of LGBT Jewish history, which consists of events at the intersection of Judaism and queer people.

Timeline

* c. 486 BCE - Darius I adopted the Holiness Code of Leviticus for Persian Jews of the Achaemenid Empire, enacting the first state sanctioned death penalty for male same-sex intercourse.
* 1322 CE - The Provençal-Jewish poet Kalonymus ben Kalonymus writes "On Becoming a Woman", expressing lament at and cursing having been born male, referring to their penis as a מוּם (múm), a "defect", and wishes to have been created as a woman.
* c. 1894-1943 - Jiří Langer, an early writer in modern Hebrew, included homoerotic themes in his work.

1960s

* 1965 - Women of Reform Judaism officially supported decriminalization of homosexuality in the United States of America. http://www.wrj.org/sites/default/files/WRJ%20R%26S%201965%20Judaism%20and%20the%20Family.pdf

1970s

* 1972 - Beth Chayim Chadashim was founded in 1972 as the first LGBT synagogue in the world, and the first LGBT synagogue recognized by the Union for Reform Judaism.
* 1977 - Beth Chayim Chadashim became the first LGBT synagogue to own its own building.
* 1977 - The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), which is the Union for Reform Judaism's principal body, adopted a resolution calling for legislation decriminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults, and calling for an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians. The resolution called on Reform Jewish organizations to develop programs to implement this stand.
* 1978 - Allen Bennett became the first openly gay rabbi in the United States.

1980s

* 1980 - Lionel Blue became the first British rabbi to come out as gay.
* 1984 - Reconstructionist Judaism became the first Jewish denomination to allow openly gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors.
* 1988 - Stacy Offner became the first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation, Shir Tikvah Congregation of Minneapolis (a Reform Jewish congregation).

1990s

*1990 - The Union for Reform Judaism announced a national policy declaring lesbian and gay Jews to be full and equal members of the religious community. Its principal body, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), officially endorsed a report of their committee on homosexuality and rabbis. They concluded that "all rabbis, regardless of sexual orientation, be accorded the opportunity to fulfill the sacred vocation that they have chosen" and that "all Jews are religiously equal regardless of their sexual orientation."
* 1993 - A Reconstructionist Jewish movement Commission issued: ''Homosexuality and Judaism: The Reconstructionist Position''.
* 1995 - Rabbi Margaret Wenig (who was openly lesbian) had her essay "Truly Welcoming Lesbian and Gay Jews" published in ''The Jewish Condition: Essays on Contemporary Judaism Honoring Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler''; it was the first published argument to the Jewish community on behalf of civil marriage for gay couples.
* 1996 - The Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution approving same-sex civil marriage. However, this same resolution made a distinction between civil marriages and religious marriages.
* 1998 - After she won the Eurovision song competition, a serious religious debate was held as to whether, and how, Dana International (a transgender woman) should pray in a synagogue. One rabbinical authority concluded that Dana should be counted in a minyan as a man, but could not sing in front of the community since she was also a woman, according to the rabbi, and that would violate the Orthodox rule of kol isha.
* 1999 - Steven Greenberg publicly came out as gay in an article in the Israeli newspaper '' Maariv''. As he has a rabbinic ordination from the Orthodox rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University ( RIETS), he is generally described as the first openly gay Orthodox Jewish rabbi. However, some Orthodox Jews, including many rabbis, dispute his being an Orthodox rabbi.

2000s

*2000 - In March 2000 the Central Conference of American Rabbis issued a new resolution stating that "We do hereby resolve that the relationship of a Jewish, same gender couple is worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual, and further resolve, that we recognize the diversity of opinions within our ranks on this issue. We support the decision of those who choose to officiate at rituals of union for same-sex couples, and we support the decision of those who do not."
* 2000 - Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion established the Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity to "educate HUC-JIR students on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues to help them challenge and eliminate homophobia and heterosexism; and to learn tools to be able to transform the communities they encounter into ones that are inclusive and welcoming of LGBT Jews." It was the first institute of its kind in the Jewish world.
* 2002 - At the Reform seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, the Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig (who was openly lesbian) organized the first school-wide seminar at any rabbinical school which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual.
* 2003 - Reuben Zellman became the first openly transgender person accepted to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he was ordained in 2010.
* 2003 - The Union for Reform Judaism retroactively applied its pro-rights policy on gays and lesbians to the bisexual and transgender communities, issuing a resolution titled, "Support for the Inclusion and Acceptance of the Transgender and Bisexual Communities".
* 2003 - Women of Reform Judaism issued a statement describing their support for human and civil rights and the struggles of the bisexual and transgender communities, and saying, "Women of Reform Judaism accordingly: Calls for civil rights protections from all forms of discrimination against bisexual and transgender individuals; Urges that such legislation allows transgender individuals to be seen under the law as the gender by which they identify; and Calls upon sisterhoods to hold informative programs about the transgender and bisexual communities."
* 2003 - The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved a rabbinic ruling that concluded that sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is permissible as a treatment of gender dysphoria, and that a transgender person's sex status under Jewish law is changed by SRS.
* 2003 - The Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig (who was openly lesbian) organized the first school-wide seminar at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual.
* 2004 - The Society for Humanistic Judaism issued a resolution supporting "the legal recognition of marriage and divorce between adults of the same sex," and affirming "the value of marriage between any two committed adults with the sense of obligations, responsibilities, and consequences thereof."
* 2004 - The Association of Humanistic Rabbis issued a pro-LGBT statement titled "In Support of Diverse Sexualities and Gender Identities".
* 2005 - Eli Cohen became the first openly gay man to be ordained a rabbi by the Jewish Renewal Movement.
* 2006 - In Conservative Judaism, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Rabbinical Assembly makes the movement's decisions concerning Jewish law. On December 6, 2006, The CJLS adopted three distinct responsa reflecting very different approaches to homosexuality. One responsum substantially liberalized Conservative Judaism's approach including lifting most (but not all) classical prohibitions on homosexual conduct and permitted the blessing of homosexual unions and the ordination of openly gay/lesbian/bisexual clergy. Two others completely retained traditional prohibitions. Under the rules of the Conservative movement, the adoption of multiple opinions permits individual Conservative rabbis, congregations, and rabbinical schools to select which opinion to accept, and hence to choose individually whether to maintain a traditional prohibition on homosexual conduct, or to permit openly gay/lesbian/bisexual unions and clergy. The liberalizing responsum, adopted as a majority opinion by 13 of 25 votes, was authored by Rabbis Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel Nevins, and Avram Reisner. It lifted most restrictions on homosexual conduct and opened the way to the ordination of openly gay/lesbian/bisexual rabbis and cantors and acceptance of homosexual unions, but stopped short of religiously recognizing same-sex marriage. The responsum invoked the Talmudic principle of ''kavod habriyot'', which the authors translated as "human dignity", as authority for this approach. The responsum maintained a prohibition on male-male anal sex, which it described as the sole Biblically prohibited homosexual act. This act remains a ''yehareg ve'al ya'avor'' (" die rather than transgress" offense) under the decision. The Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University) in Los Angeles had previously stated that it would immediately begin admitting gay/lesbian/bisexual students as soon as the law committee passed a policy that sanctioned such ordination.
* 2006 - Chaya Gusfield and Rabbi Lori Klein, both ordained in America, became the first openly lesbian rabbis ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement.
* 2006 - Conservative Judaism decided to allow openly lesbian rabbis and cantors.
* 2006 - Elliot Kukla, who came out as transgender six months before his ordination in 2006, was the first openly transgender person to be ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
* 2007 - The Union for Reform Judaism issued a new edition of ''Kulanu'', their resource manual for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion, which for the first time included a blessing sanctifying the sex-change process. It was written by Elliot Kukla at the request of a friend of his who was transgender.
* 2007 - On March 26, 2007, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York began accepting openly gay/lesbian/bisexual candidates for admission for their Rabbinical program.
* 2007 - Jalda Rebling, a German woman born in the Netherlands, became the first openly lesbian cantor ordained by the Jewish Renewal movement.
* 2007 - Rabbi Toba Spitzer became the first openly lesbian or gay person to head a rabbinical assembly when she was elected president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly at the group's annual convention, held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
* 2007 - Joy Ladin became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox institution (Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University).
* 2007 - In Israel, a neo-Nazi group of immigrants (from Russia) called Patrol 36, all of whom were of Jewish descent, some of whom had immigrated under the Law of Return, and one of whom was a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, were violent against gays and others, as well as committing vandalism and voicing anti-Semitic rhetoric.
* 2008 - In an open letter distributed to Orthodox community leaders, the Hod organization (an independent Israel-based organization run by and intended for Orthodox Jewish homosexuals) appealed to the Orthodox community to recognize them as part of the religious society. This was sent to over 100 rabbis in 2008, and eventually was known as the "Document of Principles". By 2013, 163 Orthodox rabbis from Israel and abroad had signed this statement, among them: rabbi Yuval Cherlow, rabbi Binyamin Lau, rabbi Haim Navon, rabbi Daniel Sperber, rabbi Eliezer Melamed, rabbi Shai Piron

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