This session uses havruta-style study, a traditional Jewish mode of paired learning, to explore stories that can inspire queer Jewish life today. Come discover centuries of hidden history, from a gay brawl in a medieval synagogue to a gender-bending Jewish stowaway in colonial Canada, and from gender transition in a Ukrainian shtetl to gay and lesbian Jewish activists in 1950s America. No previous Hebrew knowledge or Jewish experience necessary.
Noam Sienna is a Jewish educator, artist, and doctoral candidate in History at the University of Minnesota. He is the editor of "A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969."
