A queer Torah study group is showing LGBTQ+ people they have always belonged in Judaism

A queer Torah study group in Portland, Oregon, wants LGBTQ+ people to know that they have always been a part of Jewish history.

It’s all in how you look at things, explains Rabbi Emerita Ariel Stone, who helped start the study group at Congregation Shir Tikvah. “If you look back at Jewish teachings about the Torah, it says that there are 70 different ways to understand any piece of Torah, any word, any command, any story,” Stone told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

“It’s not complete unless you turn it over again and turn it over again and look at it in different ways,” she added. “You’re queering your perspective of it simply by studying it the way you’re meant to study it.”

Angel Ya’el Murauskas, a lay leader at the temple, said the goal isn’t to prove that certain biblical characters are queer, but to examine the text more openly and challenge long-held assumptions.

“Genesis 1 is incredibly queer,” Murauskas shared as an example. “God creates an ‘Adam,’ which is a creature that is sort of a man and a woman. It’s not really clear, but they need to be cleaved apart from one another, which invites an interesting question about what exactly is going on here.”

They also brought up a passage about the love shared between Ruth and Naomi. “One of the most beautiful passages and expressions of love in the entire Bible is between two women. Ruth says to Naomi, ‘I will literally go where you go. I will die where you die.’ I mean, what is that if not a marriage?”

Murauskas said the group has been “incredibly healing” for many queer people, as it has helped them feel more welcome in the Jewish religion. “It’s the first time anyone has told them, ‘You actually aren’t an outsider to this. This book is full of people like you.’”

While Shir Tikvah is clearly a progressive synagogue, other sects of Judaism are not so open-minded.

Orthodox Jewish queer folks and their allies have continually pushed for inclusion as valuable community members rather than accept exclusion from their faith. But Orthodox rabbis have argued that religious queerphobia stems more from adherence to Jewish law rather than anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, something a course like Shir Tikvah’s would debunk.

Critics of these anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes also point out that Orthodox institutions aren’t as opposed to people who violate other parts of Jewish law, like people who drive on Shabbat (the day of rest that extends from Friday evening to Saturday evening) or those who violate kosher dietary laws.

It took until 2025, for example, for Yeshivat Chovevei Torah — an all-male Orthodox Jewish rabbinical school in Riverdale, New York — to ordain its first out gay rabbi, Tadhg Cleary.

Cleary’s June 12 ordination ceremony came six years after the school refused to ordain another gay student whose public wedding engagement went viral online.

Also last year, the private Orthodox Jewish university, Yeshiva, finally recognized its on-campus LGBTQ+ student club after a years-long legal battle.

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Originally Posted Here