When it comes to the acceptance of transgender Jews, the American Jewish community is itself in a moment of transition. In 2008, Joy Ladin became the public face of transgender Judaism when she transitioned from male to female after receiving tenure at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. Five years later, there are at least…
“I don’t think it was an accident that I found myself coming out as trans at the same time that I found myself becoming ordained,” said Rabbi Elliot Kukla, the first out transgender rabbi to be ordained in 2006 at HUC-JIR’s Los Angeles campus. “There is a certain identity transition in becoming a rabbi that,…
As the first out transgender student accepted at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, in 2003, Reuben Zellman recalled reading about his historic admission in a local newspaper. “I realized I was the first transgender person I had ever seen in the media who was still alive,” he said. At the time, transgender issues barely…
The fact that she’s the only out transgender female rabbi doesn’t surprise 28-year-old Emily Aviva Kapor. It’s a reflection of sexism in the broader society, she said, paired with the fact that the Jewish feminist movement largely has overlooked trans women. “If I want to have an affirmative Judaism for all women, including trans women,”…
Shortly before Emily Aviva Kapor began the transition from male to female, she sat down to discuss the process with her mother. “I told her I was going on hormones, and she said the most Jewish thing to me,” 27-year-old Kapor recalled. “She said, ‘Well, at least you’re not getting a tattoo.’” It’s a funny…
Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders By Joy Ladin University of Wisconsin Press, 270 pages, $26.95 Probably one of the best-known Jewish stories in the world is a transgender tale. A young educator realizes that they really belong with the opposite gender. And, although it overturns social convention and throws families…
When Poland’s new Sejm, or Parliament, was seated recently, the nationally televised event showed something never before seen in this conservative nation: a transsexual woman and an openly gay man being solemnly sworn in along with other parliamentarians. The seminal event was a consequence of the emergence of Palikot, a new, explicitly anti-clerical, libertarian-oriented party…
Mazel tov — it’s a boy! Not the baby, but the person giving birth. That’s right. If the news broken by Yediot Ahronot is correct, a man is to have a baby. Apparently, a 24-year-old Israeli who had a female-to-male sex change operation went to a hospital on Sunday and told doctors that he’s pregnant….
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