Ten Queer Heroes and Scoundrels

Same-sex love, while surely hidden and formally decried, finds surprising expression in Jewish poetry, prose and case law. The material is full of pathos, gender bending, humor and intrigue and reveals a sliver of life, despite the well known prohibition, that has been all but erased from historical memory. We will meet ten queer characters of Jewish history, some famous others infamous whose stories will help us to make sense of the issue for our own moment. . . . Rabbi Steve Greenberg is an Orthodox rabbi, ordained at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Early in his career he served as a senior educator for the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL), a think tank and training institute where he worked as an educator, curriculum writer, lecturer and consultant on wide variety of cutting edge projects on the ethics, environment, social justice and communal leadership. Steve is the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi and a founder of the Jerusalem Open House, the Holy City’s GLBT community center. In 2001 Steve appeared in the documentary, Trembling Before G-d, and joined with the film maker to create a worldwide outreach project conducting over 500 post-screening community dialogues all over the world. In 2004 he finished a decade long project, a book entitled, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, which explores biblical, rabbinic, medieval and contemporary Jewish responses to same-sex relationships. (University of Wisconsin Press) for which he won the Koret Jewish Book Award for Philosophy and Thought. Rabbi Greenberg is presently the Director of Education at Eshel, a support, education and advocacy organization for LGBT+ Orthodox Jews and their families. He lives with his partner, Steven Goldstein, and their daughter, Amalia, in Boston.