here’s the issue:

i went to Congragation Sha’ar Zahav, the gay shul in San Francisco… and… i… didn’t like it.

it left me with the following question: when does a politically and religiously progressive, Reform, queer-friendly jewish community cross over into something other than judaism?

what i experienced at Sha’ar Zahav *reminded* me of judaism.  it bore some resemblance to a kabbalat shabbat service.  but i’m not entirely certain that’s what it was.

yes, the building was a “proper” sanctuary with stained glass windows, yes, they have designated leadership and a membership, and yes they are well-known and specifically queer.  yes yes yes.  BUT the cantor was excessively showy in his exuberance so as to come off like a kindergarten teacher, the leader of the service was entirely too self-congratulatory in his sense of humor, and there was a mere 20 people there, none of whom could carry a tune to save their lives.

more importantly, there were too many moments when the service felt more like a gay religion than like judaism.

the siddur, printed especially for Sha’ar Zahav, contained prayers unrecognizable to me as a jew with an orthodox upbringing.  a small fraction of the text was in hebrew, and what traditional text was in there, they mostly skipped over during the service.  i’m not saying that a decontextualized quote from Leaves of Grass may never ever be used in a jewish service to forcibly evoke a sense of awe.  i’m just saying that there are ways to use what already exists in our jewish liturgy (or if we absolutely must, make secular additions), without bastardizing our history and traditions.

one more note on liturgy: for me, the straw that broke my tolerance was when we recited the Shema together, i found that i didn’t know their version of the text.  the Shema, which is sung in exactly the same tune, in exactly the same words precisely so that a jew, no matter where they are from, who they are, or what language they speak, can go into any shul around the globe, and be able to say the Shema with the local community.  that’s how important the Shema is.

never again will i go to a service where i am made to put my arms around a stranger and sway, wear a name tag, or sing “shabbat shalom, hey!“.

this last part is not specific to self-proclaimed LGBT shuls.  this is more a frustration with reform judaism in general.

i have the following imagined criticism playing out in my head: the reform shul says to me, “yeah, well at least we *want* you in our community.  why would you want to be in a community that doesn’t want you back?”

good question.

the answer is that i dont need to sacrifice a serious, well-informed, traditional judaism for queer friendliness.

case in point: the San Francisco Mission Minyan.  i found kabbalat shabbat at Mission Minyan, which i attended the previous week, to be infinitely more inspiring.  held in an upstairs room in the Women’s Building, the Mission Minyan had the feeling of going to a shteeble.  a no-frills, plain old room in some random place — nothing awe-inspiring about it.  but it was PACKED with people of all stripes, genders, and ages– women wearing tichles, men wearing suits, people in kippot serugot, jeans, and sneakers.  there were women, men, genderqueers…

there was no backward-bending necessary to make the service all-gender-friendly, welcoming to women and queers, and still traditional both in spirit and in practice.  The prayers remained intact, the folks who wanted seating separated by gender sat apart, but there was no mechitzah, and the service was constructed so that whatever your personal minhag, you were able to execute it without standing out and without being criticized.  there are no divrei torah at Mission Minyan to avoid politicizing or proselytizing that which is meant to be accessible and welcoming to all.  furthermore, there was TONS of singing!  and in my book, that’s the main ingredient in any good shul experience.

whenever i experience a community like this (and it’s only happened once before at P’nai Or of Portland, Oregon under the Rabbinical leadership of the late Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield) i cannot describe it as anything other than miraculous.

the inspiring reb aryeh

i guess i don’t feel TOO guilty…

i will definitely be back to the Mission Minyan.

sorry Sha’ar Zahav.

i only realized just how disorganized the ny litcrawl was when i arrived in san francisco earlier this week and perused the program for the event here.  a super user-friendly map of all the locations adorn a centerfold in the booklet that shows all the events in all their color-coded glory.  not only that, but the three phases of the SF crawl have been placed on a geographical progression along valencia street in order to minimize chaos, save time getting from one event to another, and, i imagine, create a sense of community as folks move between venues.

ok, so i haven’t been to the SF crawl yet (it’s not until tonight), but it seems to be arranged in a way that, as a non-SF-native at least, i appreciate.  and i can’t wait!

this is one of his films:

Take Away Show #100 _ SOEMA MONTENEGRO (part 1) from Vincent Moon / Petites Planètes on Vimeo.

This year, the New York finalist reading will be held at Bluestockings Books.  We’ve got an all-star lineup!

NEW YORK • MAY 12, 2011

Bluestockings Books
172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002
7:00 pm Reading

Readers: Eileen Myles, Michael Klein, Sassafras Lowrey, Barbara Hammer, Ann Herendeen, Daniel Talbott, Rob Stephenson, Gayle Salamon, Eleanor Lerman, Kathleen Warnock, Georgeann Packard, Rafael de la Dehesa, and Richard Stevenson.

Support Lambda in cities around the country!  for info on more finalist readings, click here.

Last year I went to the Northeast MLA conference in Montreal and was utterly bored by all the panels i attended.  With the exception of my fellow Anais Nin colleagues’ work, every paper i heard was uptight, taut like skin that hadn’t yet adjusted from a new facelift.

or something.

the point is, it was excruciating.

each sentence the presenters spoke was like a string of autoerotic spasms that left the audience catatonic, drenched in academic ejaculate.  or maybe more accurately, as if each presenter was picking his own boogers and then analyzing their shape and color for us.

so i proposed a panel for the following NeMLA convention: Experiments in Hybrid Essay.

and here i am a year later in new brunswick, NJ.  we just got done with our session.  it was very refreshing!  people are hungry for new forms.  it’s only the old and stodgy, pessimistic and politically straight that think hybrid forms are so radical and incomprehensible, inappropriate, and incongruous with “serious” academic work.

each of the presenters on the panel delivered beautifully-written, potent and powerful pieces.  smart, solid, and filled with nuance.

last night, at the conference’s opening event, i got the feeling that i didn’t belong–everyone dressed in suits, straight-looking, older… when anyone dared to look at me, it was with a discriminating (in both senses of the word) eye.

but today i am happy to report that i’m relieved by the turnout.  the crowd today is peppered with a small handful of queerish-looking women with complex fashion senses, dyke-tastic struts, and brave haircuts.

but academic conferences always make me feel like i’ve landed on another planet (a feeling i’m getting used to with all the moving around i’ve been doing)– these conferences are really alienating.

here’s the question of the day: why don’t queers talk to each other in straight places??  you’d think we’d be more eager to find and befriend fellow homos.  but no.  we don’t even give each other knowing nods.  i’ll bet they feel alienated, too.  maybe they will be at the “LGBT Caucus” tomorrow.  then it will be safer to meet.

i still want to teach, but this conference world is no longer enticing to me.  when asked what school i’m going to or teaching at, i take pride in saying that i am not attached to any institution.

the queerest of the jewish holidays fall just a few weeks apart from each other this time of year: purim and pesach.  handsdown, my two favorite holidays.

JFREJ, Jews for Economic Justice, put on a party and purim schpeil to raise funds for their current campaigns.  JFREJ is one of those non-profs that acts more like a movement than a mere social justice .org.  The event was part rally, part tailgate party, and part Oregon Country Fair.  There were larger-than-life (literally) puppets, megaphones, and queer klezmer.  There was dancing, costumes and beer.  It was a freezing cold night but, runny noses and numb fingers and all, we stood outside in some concrete courtyard in Brooklyn to watch the raucous and politically relevant retelling of the purim story.  I looked around and thought, for the first time, that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live in New York.

So purim is drag and drunkenness, damn-the-man and dig-your-heels-in: all the things radical queerz like.  and likewise, pesach also speaks to us homos, though with fewer sequins and princess dresses, and more bitter, dire-strai(gh)ts tears and feelings of camaraderie in the face of oppression.

This year for pesach, my family is going to try something new: we’re going to make our own traditions apart from, yet informed by, our orthodox background.  we on the “other” side of the family, are going to try to do something hybrid form.  something tailor-made.  this means having three different haggadahs, a banjo, stories of the ba’al shem tov and the holy Ari, all the good food, one shiksa, two dykes, two couples living outta wedlock, hebrew, english, yiddish, and room for both eliyahu AND miriam at the table.

everything gets mixed up on these holidays– they are permissive.  i think in these two holidays, there is the most leeway for creating one’s own minhag more so than any others.

some people do it one way, others, another way.

and we’re all right.

except if you use two-ply paper towels with the chametzdick adhesive.  then you’re unequivocally incorrect.

in the meantime, check out this project i’m working on with Lambda Literary.  feel free to re-post the call for info far and wide.