Orthodox Jewish LGBTQ Acceptance in Israel: Inclusion, Expansion, and Disruption

• In Event: Jewish Respectability Politics

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger study of the Orthodox Jewish LGBTQ movement in Israel and Jewish Orthodoxy’s shifting approach to gender and sexual minorities. Until recently an oxymoron, “gay Orthodox” has become a viable yet contested category in Israel. The broader project documents this historical shift, identifies lingering battlegrounds, and assess the implications of LGBTQ visibility, inclusivity, and acceptance on Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel as well as on LGBTQ-friendly secular spaces. This paper focuses on conversations within the movement about goals (inclusivity, visibility, acceptance, remaking Orthodoxy) and strategies. Central to these conversations is the notion of “respectability”: who is a subject deserving of acceptance into the folds of Orthodoxy? The politics of respectability thus frame strategies and actions, negotiations within the movement and alliances and disagreements with the communities in which it is embedded, articulating who (and what) identities and practices to be tolerated/accepted (e.g. celibate/non practicing individuals or those in monogamous long-term relationships) and those to be rejected and scrutinized. These conversations are apparent both in intra-movement dialogues and in negotiations with rabbis, the Orthodox community at large, and with secular LGBTQ organizations and space. These conversations reflect broader tensions experienced by many movements for social change: a desire to work for recognition within the system versus a wholesale critique of institutional structures and norms.

Author

• Orit Avishai, Fordham University