2024 JQT TEMPERATURE CHECK
In the months following October 7, 2023, JQT’s Board heard from many JQTs who were, and still are, processing the painful and complex situation evolving in Israel and Palestine. In response, in Spring 2024 we conducted a Temperature Check survey to gauge and record the experiences of queer and trans Jews. This was done in the hopes that the survey would help folks feel heard and responses would help guide our efforts to support JQTs in ways needed at this specific moment in time.
We solicited responses from JQTs with varying perspectives and lived experiences. We heard from folks who are angry, sad, hurt, and who feel isolated from the broader LGBTQ2SIA+ and Jewish communities. We also heard from folks who feel more connected to LGBTQ2SIA+ and Jewish communities post October 7th, - reflecting the diversity we know to make up the big and beautiful group we serve. We acknowledge many of the issues addressed in this survey predate October 7th and have long been experienced by JQTs. The longstanding history of some of these experiences are captured in JQT’s Oral History Project. We also acknowledge the experiences and perspectives not captured in our survey are just as valid, relevant, and true as those documented.
Though survey responses reflected a wide and sometimes oppositional diversity in our community, we did see commonality in the deep pain respondents are experiencing. We acknowledge this pain, regardless (and inclusive) of where JQTs fall on the Israel/Palestine/Zionism/anti-Zionism political spectrum. We feel it too and we see you, hear you, and hold space for you exactly as you are.
Lastly, we thank all 91 respondents for taking the time to fill out this survey and for sharing your experiences openly and honestly.
You can view the report by flipping through the pages of the report directly on this site or click here to view a PDF version of the report.
This report was conducted as part of our JQT Mental Health Support Series.
Reflections on the 2024 JQT Vancouver Temperature Check Report
Sophie Morin, Chair, JQT Vancouver
July 2025
In spring 2024, JQT conducted the Temperature Check survey to gauge our community’s feelings and needs in the wake of October 7, 2023. The responses, 94 in total, revealed a community with diverse and often conflicting opinions and attitudes on Israel-Palestine, but largely united by feelings of hurt and exclusion in both queer and Jewish spaces. Aviva Rathbone (then Chair) and I (then Vice Chair) first presented some highlights from the results in April 2024, at a meeting of queer organizations at City Hall convened by then-councillor Christine Boyle.
We sent the report to a number of local Jewish and queer organizations, some of whom were named by respondents, to ensure that the feelings and needs of queer Jews in Vancouver were being heard. Three of these organizations took us up on our offer to meet and discuss the report further: QMUNITY, an LGBTQ+ resource centre in Davie Village; the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver (the RAV), consisting of the rabbis of several local synagogues; and Independent Jewish Voices Canada, an anti-Zionist activist group. We did not ask anyone to change their stances on anything. We asked only that they read the responses to the survey, take our respondents’ feelings and opinions seriously, and discuss them with us, without dismissing or misreading them. I believe that all three groups honoured this request, with our help, and I found all three conversations constructive.
For me, one of the main lessons of the Temperature Check project is that JQT’s policy on Israel/Palestine continues to respond to a pressing need in the Vancouver Jewish community, as identified in our 2022 community needs assessment as Call to Action #12: “Be open to those who have a spectrum of opinion on Israel/Palestine”. That policy reads as follows:
“JQT Vancouver exists to create safe space for all LGBTQ Jews, regardless of their religious and political stance on Israel, by queering Jewish spaces and Jewifying queer spaces. While JQT does not take a position on Israel, JQT recognizes the variety and validity of Jewish perspectives on this topic, and welcomes partnership with Jewish people and organizations regardless of stances on the current conflict on a case-by-case basis, provided the partnership furthers JQT’s mandate of queering Jewish space and Jewifying queer space. Further, JQT is committed to engaging in this dialogue with nuance and empathy, with organizations within and beyond Jewish and queer spaces that may have differing views and opinions on the conflict (provided that they acknowledge the broad and diverse experiences of LGBTQ Jews), ensuring that all members of JQT are connected together by our Jewish values and desire for safe Jewish LGBTQ spaces.”
This policy makes everything else that we do possible. It is not a policy of neutrality; indeed, it calls us to take a consistent side, namely the side of our fellow queer Jews, for whom we advocate whenever they are excluded from queer or Jewish spaces. Through this policy, we insist that neither Zionism nor anti-Zionism can make any of us less queer, less Jewish, or less deserving of full inclusion in both queer and Jewish spaces. Everyone whose voice was heard in the Temperature Check was heard because of this policy and our refusal to compromise on it.
The Temperature Check survey was a deeply impactful exercise in listening at a time when queer Jews in Vancouver badly needed to be heard. As a survey, it had significant methodological flaws, but its great value was in the conversations that it made possible. The report, which can be accessed directly above on this page, gave us a mandate to make queer and Jewish organizations hear the hurt, anger, and alienation of queer Jews. I hope that our work can be used as a model for how to engage with community on contentious issues, and I hope that this update is a breath of fresh air in a very difficult, polarizing time for all of us.
I want to express my gratitude to everyone who responded to the survey and to everyone who read it and took the words of queer Jews in Vancouver seriously. May your courageous sharing and careful listening continue to uplift queer Jewish life in this city.