Rabbi Yoel Kahn: Hineini! Here I Am!: Early Queer Jewish Liturgy

“Hear the gay shouts of liberation in the tents of the just!” (Psalm 118:15). Reciting the festival liturgy on Pride Shabbat was an important innovation—first celebrated at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York in 1973—and so was this early gay-inclusive new translation of the psalm. This session, in honor of LGBTQ Pride, will examine the creation and evolution of early LGBTQ-informed and -inclusive liturgy in the 1970s and 1980s.