(Jewish Group) No more 'bar' mitzvah: Synagogues changing ways to support LGBTQ youth
Over the last year, no fewer than five young people came out publicly as LGBTQ at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a pluralistic synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Even Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann, SAJ’s spiritual leader and an active champion of gay rights dating back to her days as a rabbinic intern at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest synagogue for LGBTQ individuals, was surprised at the number.
“That’s a lot in a very small community,” Herrmann said. “And the whole community has been very accepting.”
In the congregation of 270 families, only a handful of adults identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer, she said.
“But there are quite a substantial number of tweens and teens, and even younger, who are LGBTQ,” Herrmann said. “These are kids who are out by the fourth grade through high school, from age 8 and up.”
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