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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….
Forward editor Naomi Zeveloff talks about the groundbreaking series on transgender Jews in an interview with Sirius satellite radio. Click to listen.
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward deputy culture editor, Naomi Zeveloff, to discuss the our ongoing series about transgender Jews and the response so far. Then, opinion editor Gal Beckerman drops by to discuss what the US is and isn’t doing about Syria. Finally, we check back in…
At summer camp, sneaking into the boys side or the girls side is as classic an activity as roasting marshmallows. But what if the side you were assigned isn’t where you think you belong? Or what if you don’t fit into either side? Jewish summer camp — with its gender-segregated bunks, bathrooms, activities and rituals,…
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