
Haaretz: 12/28/12 by Daniella Peled-
A new grant from the UK Heritage Lottery Fund will allow the gay
Jewish community to research, record and archive its colorful roots.
Coming out to your rabbi can be a nerve-wracking
experience, particularly when he's the head of the United Synagogue,
which represents much of England's Jewish community – and your boss. But
Mark Solomon, an Orthodox minister at the time, recalls that the
reaction of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at their pivotal meeting in
January 1992 was "quite kind."
"Under his breath, he said 'Oh my God.' Then he gave me a little spiel
about why he thought homosexuality was wrong – but he wished me well and
said that the door was always open."
Most significantly, says Solomon, who had already decided to leave his
job as a rabbi at an orthodox London synagogue, Sacks allowed him to
work out the remainder of his job.
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Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of the UK |
The experience of Solomon, now 49 and a prominent rabbi in UK's Liberal
Synagogue, is likely to be part of a landmark project launching next
month to record the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
Jews in the United Kingdom.
The two-year "Rainbow Jews" initiative, the first of its kind in the
UK, has been awarded a grant of nearly 60,000 pounds by the UK Heritage
Lottery Fund to research, record and archive the experiences of British
LGBT Jews from the 1950s until the present day. The theme of the
project, conducted under the auspices of the Liberal Judaism
movement, is "Pioneers and Milestones."
British Jews have long been something of pioneers in LGBT rights. The
Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group, celebrating its 40th anniversary this
year, was the first body of its kind established in the world. The first
ordination of an openly LGBT rabbi came in 1989, when Elizabeth Tikva
Sarah graduated from the progressive Leo Baeck College.
In 2005 Liberal Judaism became the first religious movement to
introduce an official liturgy for blessing same-sex commitment
ceremonies, the Brit Ahava, just ahead of British legislation
recognizing civil partnerships.
But the history of Jewish-British LGBT activism remains uncharted, says Su Rath Knan, the project's initiator and director.
"This is something we have to uncover and share with the Jewish and the
wider British community," Knan says. "We need to take it out of its
hidden space and celebrate it; it is a history that has never really
been looked at."