Click on the following videos to listen to interview excerpts. To enable Closed Captioning, please click on “CC” on bottom right corner of each video.
Dorothy Elias: “in the early 80s [in] Vancouver, I started connecting with other Jewish lesbians and they became my support group around my Jewish identity… that was a much more complicated and emotionally difficult process to deal with them than ever coming out as a lesbian”
David Steiner: “I don’t think they’ve been receptive or very responsive, very helpful at all. And I don’t know whether that’s from me not wanting to ask more than seeing services available… I don’t think I’ve ever seen: Are you gay and Jewish?”
Debby Yaffe: “Congregation Emanu-El, it’s fabulous! Totally, totally 100% supportive of our queer community… [and] lesbian couples… there was a trans person’s ceremony. I can’t say enough good”
Jeff Kushner: “As an institution, there is not an alignment of values between [Chabad]… and what I would call the secular societal rights of a LGBTQ person in… 2020”
Syd Lapan: “I was reluctant to connect… and there I was standing with my partner at the time watching Gay Pride and the float from the synagogue went by”
Val Fishman: “there was always this ostracizing that I didn’t know if it was because they didn’t believe I was Jewish, or… working class… or … because I was gay”
Max Dexall Z”L: “he used to do his cruising at the synagogue, because the guys looked so good in their tallises… and the men were separated from the women… and very closeted”
Lisa Weiner: “Growing up, until I moved to San Francisco, and even while I lived there… until I moved to Canada, I really had nothing to do with the Jewish community”
Ira Rogers: “I always felt blessed that I’m a NY Jew because even though I’m neurotic for that reason… I grew up in a place where you could be who you are without having to pay a price for it”
Alan Stamp: “Jewish history is littered with obstacles and adversity… there’s almost like a kindred-ness between being gay or lesbian, and being Jewish”
Susan Dempsey: “I’m not that connected in the Jewish community… I had such a terrible synagogue experience growing up that I’ve never wanted to join”
Shira Macklin: “What was interesting about coming out in Winnipeg in the Jewish community was nobody cared… I had men friends. They couldn’t care less.”
Ruth Simkin: “for me, it just wasn’t an issue. I always feel like you should just be who you are… I’m Jewish. I’m a lesbian. I’m this and that, but I just lived my life”
Ann Daskal: “People I didn’t think were that discriminatory or hostile or religiously against gay people. I don’t think so.”
Aaron Devor: “yes, there was some friction, but… there was more support than there was friction in the… last 20 years”
SD Holman: “I think it’s much easier to be a queer Jew in LA than it is in Vancouver… it feels very small here and… quite insular”
Marsha Ablowitz: “when I came out, I didn’t know other Jewish people that were gay… so I really haven’t had much experience with LGBT and the Jewish community”
Nancy Rosenblum: “way back in the day, I had a Jewish feminist group… everyone in it wasn’t a lesbian, but everyone in it was a female and Jewish and a feminist”
Avital Jarus Hakak: “it’s hard for me to separate my Jewishness from my identity… In Israel, we were never part of any religious group. We celebrated at home.”
Bayla Greenspoon: “we organized a couple of really big women Seders… did all the prayers in the feminine… to affirm the female presence in Judaism, that to us was very important”
Julie Elizabeth: “I’m Reform and go to Kolot Mayim. My experience in that community, perfect, no problem. We had other gay people there… I have not hidden who I am”
Lauren Nackman: “prior to moving [to] Victoria… I experienced just the experience of invisibility… I joined the Temple so we would have a place to rehearse… and they’ve been so welcoming to us”
Karen Newmoon: “when I was first connecting with the Buddhist community at the Dharma Centre… there were lots of Jews… relatively lots of queers”
Hope Forstenzer: “I’ve been kind of lucky… I’ve lived in these very liberal environments, during a time where queer rights was sort of at the forefront of what was happening”
Caryl Dolinko: “when I first came out, there wasn’t really a place for Jews and Jewish lesbians in the community. There just really wasn’t that space, and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable coming out”
Marc Gelmon: “I was really worried for the longest time that if I did participate in anything in the Jewish community that I couldn’t tell anybody…. I kept my lips zipped”
Glen Phillips: “by reflex, I’ve just been more closeted about it… it was kind of difficult to find a place there because I come from a Francophone university, but I was Ashkenazi, but a queer one.”
Lily Hoenig: “JQT for me was how I really got involved for the first time in the Jewish community… the Jewish queer community in BC was so welcoming like shockingly welcoming”
Jaye Beer: “my experience of Jewishness while trans is very small… because in Jewish spaces I hide the queerness and in queer spaces I hide the Jewishness”
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