(JTA) —- Journalist Zoey Tur, a transgender woman, has threatened Ben Shapiro, a right-wing political commentator who is an Orthodox Jew, with violence for publicly opposing social acceptance of transgender people. In a heated panel discussion Thursday on the HLN television show “Dr. Drew On Call,” Shapiro said, “Why are we mainstreaming delusion?” And later:…
In ultra-Orthodox circles, Western culture, and the non-Orthodox Jews who embrace it, are often referred to as “Greek.” Though seemingly frozen in time, this epithet is actually quite apt. It points to the deeper meaning of debates surrounding religion in American life – and why progressives are winning them. Where Haredim say “Greek,” conservative Christians…
Since Vanity Fair released the “Call Me Caitlyn” cover on Monday, you’ve probably seen a flurry of comments about it on social media: some full of “YAAAS GIRL” positivity, and others spouting some variation on “This is still a man named Bruce Jenner and there’s not a feminization surgery or Annie Leibovitz photoshoot in the…
Tom Chai Sosnik stood in front of his eighth-grade class, flecks of rainbow colored hair visible beneath his blue yarmulke, as he was wrapped in a tallit for the very first time. His classmates stood and chanted together, “Baruch HaBah [“Welcome”]” three times, and then ran forward, enveloping him in a big, messy hug. Tom’s…
Oldenburg, Germany, is made of people who are historically ahead of their time. “In 1932,” a man tells me as I arrive there, “the people here were the first to vote for a local Nazi government. We did it before Berlin!” This man, I learn quickly, is not the only one in Oldenburg who remembers…
illustration by Lior Zaltzman When Kay Long approached the Western Wall in Jerusalem last week, she was turned away because according to one of the Orthodox women supervising the women’s side of the Wall, Ms. Long was not a woman. In Orthodox Judaism, religious space is gendered space. Men and women are rigorously separated, not…
Kay Long poses on the Kotel plaza after being refused access to both women’s and men’s sections. (JTA) — A transgender woman was denied access to both the women’s and men’s sections of the Western Wall. Kay Long, who designs wedding dresses, evening gowns and costumes, on Monday visited the Western Wall with a friend…
Transgender activist Leslie Feinberg died November 15 at age 65, at her home in Syracuse, New York. According to the website Advocate.com, Feinberg died of “complications from multiple tick-borne co-infections, including Lyme disease, babeisiosis, and protomyxzoa rheumatica.” Feinberg was known for her 1993 novel “Stone Butch Blues,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and is…
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