A gala for Jewish Queer Youth celebrates untold, queer Jewish stories
Rachel Sussman was the inaugural honoree for the nonprofit advocating for observant queer Jews
Rachael Fried, executive director of JQY, poses with Tony Award-winning producer Rachel Sussman, who was honored as the inaugural Jewish Queer Icon at the 2025 JQY Gala. Photo by Abbie Sophia Photography for JQY
By PJ Grisar May 20, 2025
Jewish Queer Youth honored a storyteller Monday who, as a seventh grader in Metro Detroit, dreamed of a musical that would celebrate the overlooked figures of the suffrage movement.
Rachel Sussman, the Tony-winning producer of Suffs and Alex Edelman’s Just for Us, was the inaugural recipient of the Queer Jewish Icon award from JQY, a Manhattan-based organization serving young queer people from Orthodox and Conservative communities with mental health support and a place to be themselves.
The gala event at the David Rubinstein Atrium at Lincoln Center boasted a kosher sushi conveyor belt and Broadway stars belting showtunes. A theme of the evening aligned with the central one of Suffs, a march toward progress and the pioneers too often forgotten in the struggle.
“When I saw the show, it was like, ‘Oh my God. How many other people are there like this? How many other stories are we missing?’” said JQY Executive Director Rachael Fried, who fell in love with Suffs last year. “And that sort of inspired: ‘How many other queer Jews are there that no one’s talking about?’”
Part of JQY’s mission is to help young people, who drop in to their midtown office from all over the tristate area, recognize LGBTQ+ Jews’ often invisible hand in history.
“The more we can show all these amazing Jewish queer people now and throughout history — it’s a tool for being able to thrive,” Fried said.
At the gala performance helmed by Suffs director Leigh Silverman and emceed by actor Julia Lester, imagining queer stories meant a musical medley from performers JJ Maley and Esther Fallick. In it, the duo identified everyone from Tevye (“if I were a rich man”) and Ariel from The Little Mermaid (it’s all about wanting bottom surgery) as trans.
“This is a perfect intersection of the Venn diagram of just two of the groups that make New York great,” said comedian and writer Julie Klausner, a member of the host committee, of the long history of queer Jews and musical theater.
To a packed house of over 250, some in kippot and many in bright, floral suits and dresses, Ben Ross Levi and Zachary Noah Piser — both veterans of the title role in Dear Evan Hansen — sang a duet of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” On a screen behind them were images of JQYers doing art projects or sharing pizza. Before a live auction via cell phone, young people shared how they found community and acceptance in the organization.
Sussman, who first came to JQY at Fried’s invitation, grew up Reform in the Detroit area, where her maternal grandmother was a nursery school teacher at Shaarey Zedek. She became bat mitzvah at Temple Israel; her theme — what else? — Broadway. (Attendees were treated to home videos of the occasion, and later testimonials from friends and collaborators including Rachel Brosnahan and Shaina Taub.)
“I was just overcome,” she said of her first visit to JQY’s Drop-In Center. “I had such a glorious, joyful experience being there.” Soon she was leading kids in the theater game zip-zap-zop, inviting JQYers to Broadway shows and debating whether her nickname, “Suss,” was “suss” in the Gen Z sense.
The work, she said, is part of the Jewish tenets of tzedekah and tikkun olam. And it is all the more important at a time when attacks on queer and trans youth are a priority for President Trump’s second administration.
“With antisemitism and homophobia so rampant, it feels even more important that we live in our truth and stand up for, protect, at risk youth who need us most,” Sussman added.
Accepting her award as the inaugural honoree, Sussman shared how she met a trans youth who only felt safe using their preferred pronouns at JQY, and how, without many queer role models, it took her until college to come out and begin writing what she calls her own narrative.
“While I am proudly Jewish and queer, I never aspired to be an icon,” Sussman said, “I see this award as an opportunity to live up to the status of icon, to be a role model to the young people of JQY that I wish I had growing up, to motivate them to pursue their biggest, boldest dreams and believe in their magic. If a cis, Jewish queer lady can win a Tony while raising a tiny human with her wife, then maybe I can, too. This award holds me accountable to them.”
The evening, which has so far raised over $235,000 from a goal of $30,000, ended with Tony winner Nikki M. James singing “Keep Marching” from Suffs.
The song’s lyrics include a nod to the Jewish text Pirkei Avot and the quote “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” The quote is the play’s epigraph, and was engraved, in Hebrew and English, on a plaque received by Sussman.
“In moments of fear and darkness, we find the light and laughter, we keep marching b’simcha, with joy,” said Fried.
Correction: A previous version of this article identified the song from Suffs as “March On.” It is called “Keep Marching.”
