By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
As Louise Chernin noted, the majority of leaders in Seattle’s gay rights movement are Jewish. That’s not a surprise, said Chernin, director of the Greater Seattle Business Alliance, the largest lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender Chamber of Commerce in the country, given the decades of Jews having been on the front lines of fighting for all kinds of civil rights.
Chernin was one of eight gay or lesbian Jews honored for their work in advancing Seattle’s gay community on Dec. 17 at a Hanukkah party thrown by Kolenu, the LGBT group within Hillel at the University of Washington’s Jconnect young adults program.
While in some ways it felt like a passing of the torch from an older generation of activists to the up-and-coming activists, as one of the honorees noted, “We’re not done yet.”
Cantor David Serkin-Poole
Cantor Serkin-Poole of Temple B’nai Torah lit the candles and led the blessings.
“This is a miracle to be all together this Hanukkah,” he told the party’s celebrants. “Sometimes we forget the miracles of today when we think of 2,000 years ago.”
David and Michael Serkin-Poole were among several couples to challenge the state’s Defense of Marriage Act in 2004. He also sits on the board of the Legal Marriage Alliance and is a longtime organizer of the annual Pride Shabbat. He is a member of the JTNews board as well.
Audrey Haberman
Having been involved with several gay and lesbian organizations locally and nationally, including as executive director of the Pride Foundation, Haberman has been active in ensuring that these campaigns have the money to do their work. But that’s not all they need, she said.
“We have maintained a sense of humor,” Haberman said of the gay Jewish community. Despite the “darkness, what I wish for us is that we continue to…strive for that sense of humor.”
Louise Chernin
The ability of the Jewish LGBT population to combine both of these aspects of their identities was, until about 30 years ago, very difficult, Chernin said.
“For many of us, it hasn’t been easy to bring these communities together,” Chernin said.
Chernin, through the GSBA and her own activism, said that in the near future she hopes as well to be done voting on civil rights.
“I hope we can be whole people wherever we are,” she said.
Marlee Blonsky
Probably the youngest honoree of the evening, Blonsky has still made her name known in Seattle’s LGBT community, from volunteering with Lifelong AIDS Alliance to being an organizer for LGBTQ Equality Weekend. She is currently the Get Engaged commissioner for the City of Seattle’s LGBT Commission.
“My wish and my blessing is that we can all be true to ourselves,” Blonsky said.
Phil Bereano
Bereano has been on the front lines of fighting for civil rights for decades, and was a critical member of the group that founded Tikvah Chadashah, Seattle’s LGBT congregation, in 1980. Now also active in West Seattle’s Kol HaNeshamah, Bereano noted that not too long ago, it was “not possible to meet like this.
“It’s just a measure of how incredibly far we’ve all come to be here tonight,” he said.
Roy Hamrick
According to investment advisor Roy Hamrick, “I cherish my gayness and I cherish my Jewishness.”
He has been involved with MultiFaith Works, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as well as with Tikvah Chadashah from its early days. Hamrick said that where today the need for such a synagogue might not be as acute, it’s still a safe space for young, gay Jews to help build their identities.
Hamrick was quick to give credit for advancements in gay and lesbian rights to the others who stood in front of the crowd. Of Haberman, he said that Pride Foundation’s success lies in part “because of the Jewish values she brings to the organization.”
Michael Taylor-Judd
Taylor-Judd has been active in gay rights for several years, both as a member of Kol HaNeshamah and, since 2003, as a board member of the Legal Marriage Alliance of Washington.
Josh Friedes
Friedes left his post as advocacy director for Equal Rights Washington earlier this year to give his full efforts to managing the campaign to approve Referendum 71, which conferred the rights of married couples in Washington State to same-sex couples. That referendum came in a challenge to the law passed by the state legislature that gave couples those rights.