By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
This article has changed to show the correct spelling of Miryam Kabakov’s name.
In the shadow of the polarizing world of same-sex marriage and California’s Proposition 8, real people grappling with real issues about their sexuality are often overlooked. One such subgroup that has largely flown under the radar has been Orthodox Jewish lesbians.
As Miryam Kabakov, who came to Seattle on tour for the anthology she edited, Keep Your Wives Away from Them, can attest, establishing her identity while remaining true to tradition has not been easy.
The book features stories and histories of many Orthodox lesbians, some of who wrote pseudonymously to keep their secret lives from communities still coming to grips with the reality of homosexuality. It’s the first book of its kind, and was one Kabakov first envisioned more than 25 years ago.
Acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Orthodox world has been fleeting at best, and in many cases has resulted in discrimination or even the casting out of individuals who have come out of the closet. Most objections to homosexuality come from a single line in the Torah of a prohibition of a man lying with another man. The only reference to women is Talmudic, and doesn’t specifically prohibit sexual acts.
“If you’re an Orthodox lesbian, that’s a little bit more comforting, but it doesn’t answer the question, ‘Is this okay?’” Kabakov said. “The way I understand it is that God is compassionate, we weren’t created this way for no reason, and if you can’t change, then you can’t.”
Kabakov had first-hand knowledge of being asked to change — when her sexual orientation became clear to her, the rabbis she consulted suggested she follow a prescribed path to right herself.
“The theory was that when you become a mature woman, that means you that will be attracted to men,” she said.
She followed her rabbis’ advice. One suggested she work with children to become more in tune with her feminine side.
“I spent a year working with kids in Israel,” Kabakov said. “It was a life-altering experience and I grew tremendously, but at the end of that year I didn’t become straight. I just became more of who I was.”
Kabakov’s continual questioning eventually brought her to a place in which she accepted she was gay but needed to continue to embrace living within Jewish law, and that there would sometimes be natural tensions between the two.
“I loved the tradition too much to just say it doesn’t belong to me anymore. I did believe that it did belong to me and I still believe that it does,” she said.
She said people question her all the time about holding onto a tradition that would seem to not want her.
“What people don’t get about Orthodoxy is it’s very joyous, and it’s kind of intoxicating in a certain way. The prayer is very meditative,” she said. “The whole thing is just very joyous in many ways and it fills your life with meaning.”
That makes up about 90 percent of her experience. The other 10 percent is the intolerance she encounters.
“I’m not giving up everything that I love because of that 10 percent or because of that one line in the Torah,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Kabakov and her partner were married, with a traditional-style wedding, though the two have different definitions of the document that sealed their union. What her partner saw as a ketubah Kabakov saw as a contract bound by the strictures of Jewish law.
“The whole wedding was just based on Orthodox tradition, but I didn’t think it was halachically binding except for the documents,” she said. “It was just great, and it infused our relationship with all the values that I grew up with.”
Her experience has been different from many of the Orthodox lesbians she has met, but because of a support group she ran for gay Jewish women, she was able to create a safe space that allowed acknowledgement of their sexuality while maintaining the connection to tradition.
This safe space is one of the goals of her book tour as well, which she called the “You are not alone” tour. In each city she visits, she is trying to speak in both a Jewish space and a non-Jewish space that can be that neutral place.
“I want to be able to have Orthodox people meet each other,” she said. “Because how do they meet?”
An event earlier this summer has shown that the tide against acceptance of gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews may be slowly turning.
In July, two months after Kabakov’s book came out, Rabbi Nathan Helfgot of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah rabbinical school in New York released a “Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews With a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community.” The document was signed by more than 90 Orthodox rabbis.
The gist of the statement is that all humans are created in the image of God and it is unacceptable to treat any person differently because of sexual orientation. It notes that while homosexual acts are forbidden, orientation and sexual attraction are not. The statement also called therapies that attempt to change sexual orientation “either ineffective or potentially damaging psychologically for many patients.” The statement discouraged same-sex relationships while recommending full acceptance of children of gay or lesbian couples.
Though it was a public acknowledgment that has not really been made before, the statement was not universally well-received.
“It is simple to use halakhah as an excuse not to ask these challenging questions about ethics, human dignity, and how we relate to those who are different than us. But those of us who know that halakhah is not stagnant and is always open to reinterpretation can see that this statement has a way to go before it actually treats gay and lesbian people as human beings who are truly created in the Image of God,” wrote Rabbi Haviva Ner-David for Zeek magazine.
Kabakov said she appreciated the statement, but stopped short of a whole-hearted endorsement.
“A lot of people think it’s pathetic, or don’t get why it’s a good thing or it’s been a move,” Kabakov said. “But there’s a lot in there that I thought was good. Just the fact that we put it out there was good.”
For more information on Keep Your Wives Away From Them and local support groups being set up by Kabakov, visit
www.keepyourwivesawayfromthem.com.