Forward deputy culture editor Naomi Zeveloff and Yeshiva University professor Joy Ladin talk with the City University of New York’s ethnic media show about transgender inclusion in Jewish life, following the publication of the Forward’s new eBook on transgender issues.
Schmekel was Brooklyn’s trans Jewish band. The group’s lyrics probed queer and trans identity to a klezmer/punk beat. In February, after three years of musical irreverence the group disbanded. “Schmekel ended amicably,” drummer Simcha Halpert-Hanson said in an email to the Forward. “We felt finished with the project and wanted to pursue other life goals…
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of the introduction from the Forward’s new ebook, Transgender & Jewish. Buy it now on Amazon. This is a book about the birth of the future — a future that was unimaginable to me for most of my life, and that is still unimaginable for many American Jewish communities,…
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to memorialize trans people who have been killed because of their gender identities. Founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender designer and activist in the wake of the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Mass., the day is now observed in hundreds of…
Dear readers, I’m thrilled to introduce myself as the new editor of the Sisterhood blog. As the deputy culture editor of the Forward, I’ve been covering gender and Judaism for the past two years, writing about topics like halachic infertility, Hasidic feminism and transgender Jews. But my path to the Sisterhood actually began long before…
Israel’s Interior Ministry has recognized the two biological fathers of the same baby. The baby is the son of Yuval and Matan Topper-Erez. Yuval Topper-Erez, the first Israeli transgender man to get pregnant, gave birth to the baby in December 2011. The Interior Ministry at first refused to recognize Matan as the baby’s biological father,…
Growing up female and Methodist in the Midwest, Kadin Henningsen was inexplicably drawn to Judaism, empathizing with characters in Holocaust documentaries on TV. Then in junior high, Henningsen had a revelation while reading Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen”: “I remember thinking I was supposed to grow up to be a Jewish man.” Less than two decades…
A number of years ago a friend asked me to co-write a ritual to mark his gender-transition to manhood. I say “friend,” but it would be more accurate to call him “queer family.” I am also a transgender Jew, and he is as close to me as my brothers are. Even so, I was hesitant….
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