Hannukah officially starts this weekend. Most of you know that, in addition to Hannukah being the “festival of lights,” it’s also a celebration of Oil. We dare you to find another people or tradition that formally embraces deep-frying as a core tenet. The miracle was that the Jews found just enough pure oil in the […]
Join us in Washington DC for a holiday party celebrating the work of A Wider Bridge, building support for Israel and its LGBTQ communities! Special guest, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, will give remarks about her longtime support of Israel and the LGBTQ community. When: Thursday, November 29th at 6:30pm This event will be hosted at the Home […]
Guila Rice recently attended the A Wider Bridge/Olivia 2017 Mission Trip to Israel. As Chanukah approaches, she reflects on her Chanukah memories then and now. In Jerusalem: Guila Rice and Olivia Founder Rachel Wahba My Dad was a House Painter who came to Canada from the ashes of the Holocaust. He worked 6-7 days a week […]
Hayley Mandel, a queer, Jewish plus-size, non-binary model wants to change the world. During our conversation, Hayley Mandel tells me no less than three times that they want to change the world. After a just a few minutes of chatting, it’s clear they will. The model appears in Refinery29’s newest No Apologies Collection, an expansion […]
Nimrod Dagan’s ultra-orthodox brother cut ties with him after hearing about his gay relationship. But when he slipped from a roof just before Hanukkah, Nimrod thought that it would be a chance to reconsider reconnection On Friday, just before the holiday of Hanukkah, I got a call from my mother, who informed me that my […]
In break from tradition, ultra-orthodox rabbi Mike Moskowitz gives emotional speech about transgender acceptance; The New York City resident is making waves for speaking about a sensitive subject. Rabbi Mike Moskowitz spoke out about trans acceptance at the Old Broadway Synagogue last week, a rare public event within the confines of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Referencing a […]
Two men and friend celebrating Christmas in north Yorkshire pub set upon by gang who accost them because one is Jewish A young gay couple from Britain was assaulted while celebrating Christmas by thugs who picked on them because one of them was Jewish, a Yorkshire news website reported. The assault occurred on December 25 […]
Lesbian Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum spreaded light this Hanukkah, not with a menorah, but with love. The firebrand lesbian rabbi of New York City’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the country’s largest LGBTQ synagogue, is bringing Jews and Muslims together to fight a rise in hate crime, which the F.B.I. reported has surged 6 percent in the […]
The menorah on Shloimy Notik’s windowsill is a reminder of how far he’s come as a proud, gay man. Coming out to my family was the beginning of a long, difficult journey. For almost a year, I attended the now-defunct organization JONAH, or Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, which offered “gay conversion” therapies that […]
In the Hanukkah spirit, Neil Goldstein Glick gives us a peek into the the lives of members of the Jewish community in Cuba Did you know the late Fidel Castro had a favorite Jewish holiday? Here’s a hint. It was not Yom Kippur. Thanksgiving 2015, my partner and I visited the Jewish community in Havana, […]