This week’s Torah commentary from Hebrew Seminary has been sponsored by Becky Adelberg in memory of the lives of all trans people whom we lost too soon.
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Why a Rabbinical School is Hosting a Trans Day of Remembrance Communal Gathering: Commentary on Trans Day of Remembrance 2024
By Rabbi Jonah Rank
“Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:16.)
Though Jews have read these words for thousands of years, whenever the Torah reading cycle has brought us to this verse in Parashat Kedoshim, the urgency of the commandment has only increased with time. We have been witness too many times to the suffering of our own people: the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem, the Crusades, the Inquisition, expulsions from different lands, pogroms, the Holocaust, and wars in Israel—just to name a few instances. That mitzvah of “Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor” calls us to action. The Maccabees revolted. The Warsaw Ghetto organized an uprising. The Israel Defense Forces have preempted countless tragedies before they could transpire.
For those among us who have never been part of an armed group, “Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor” still beckons us to bear witness to the hardships faced by those amidst us and those around us. But it is insufficient for us to be aware of such distress and to respond by ignoring cries for help. We must work to heal the hurt that plagues our world.
In these days of unprecedented antisemitism in the United States, American Jews must take note of the tragically rampant and diverse brands of discrimination that accompany hatred against Jews. Because Jews can come from any ancestral background, many Jews sit in the splash zone of the waves of anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Native, or any anti-racial sentiments in this country. Likewise, Jewish women are subject to the misogyny that pollutes any community, and Queer Jews likewise encounter homophobia and transphobia all too often. All of this goes without mentioning ableism, ageism, or any other ism that aims to erase any aspect of our identities within or beyond the Jewish community.
In advance of Trans Day of Remembrance, which falls annually on November 20, Jews who refuse to stand idly over the blood of our neighbors consider the plight of trans people—Jewish or not: those who have been met with hatred if not outright hate-based violence, and those who, in despair, took their own lives. In November 2023, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation reported that the epidemic of transphobic violence had led to the reported deaths of at least 33 trans or gender-non-conforming Americans since November of the previous year. Meanwhile, a peer-reviewed article published in September in the journal Nature Human Behavior has linked an increase in laws discriminating against trans Americans to an increase in suicide attempts by young Americans who are trans or non-binary. With the American Civil Liberties Union having tracked more than 500 anti-trans bills that have been proposed (or even passed) this year in the United States, it is no wonder when trans people in our country feel that their lives are threatened. In June 2023, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law reported that more than 40% of trans adults have attempted suicide.
How common though is trans identity? In June 2022, the Williams Institute estimated that about 1.4% of the American population identified as transgender. In the previous year, the same institute calculated that about 5.5% of American adults identified with the LGBT community. Although no statistics have yet revealed how many American Jews are trans, we have reason to believe that the percentage of trans or otherwise Queer people within the American Jewish population appears to be higher than that in the general American population. In 2021, the Pew Research Center concluded that 9% of American Jews in 2020 identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (almost twice that of the 5.5% reported by the Williams Institute regarding LGBT American adults); the Pew study did not review demographic data of trans American Jews.
Most, if not all, non-Orthodox rabbinical schools in the United States currently count LGBTQ individuals among their rabbinical students. The same is true at our pluralistic institution, Hebrew Seminary: A Rabbinical School for the Deaf and Hearing. Just over 33% of our students today are trans, and still a few more students identify with the Queer community. Because of the many ways that our learning community feels like a family, recognizing the tzelem Elohim (“the Divine image”) of trans students in our midst feels not only natural to us, but honoring kevod haberiyyot (“the human dignity”) of trans rabbis-to-be feels crucial in these virulent times.
With the support of the JUF Young Adult RoundTable grant, Hebrew Seminary has extended its hands to the Chicagoland Jewish community and will be hosting on Trans Day of Remembrance “Zokherim: We Remember,” an evening of prayer and learning to honor the trans lives we have lost. This communal gathering will bring together members, volunteers, and leaders from Hebrew Seminary, Base Chicago of the Metro Chicago Hillel, Jewish United Fund (JUF) Young Leadership Division (YLD) Pride, Keshet LGBTQ, Makom Shalom Mitziut, Mishkan Chicago, Or Chadash, SketchPad Chicago, and Temple Sholom of Chicago. Our teachers will include Hebrew Seminary student Cohen Kraus, Jackie Maris of Keshet, Nathan Lamp of Northwestern University, Hebrew Seminary Dean of Students Rabbi Shari Chen, and Hebrew Seminary alum Rabbi Menachem Cohen with Hebrew Seminary student Ezra Kiers. With poetry, music, prayer, Torah study, art, and reflection, we will put front and center the holy lives of trans individuals who were forced to live too far towards the margins of society.
Trans Day of Remembrance is personal for so many of us at Hebrew Seminary, and for so many Jews who either are Queer or are close with other Queer Jews. Although Trans Day of Remembrance is not a Jewish holiday per se, it is an occasion we make sacred by setting aside the time to remember those who have perished and to rededicate ourselves to paving a path for a better future ahead for trans people: Jewish and not Jewish alike.
“Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor” reverberates all the more clearly when the neighbor is your friend, your relative, your classmate, or even yourself. As an institution that not only creates leaders for the future of North American Jews, Hebrew Seminary offers the content of prayer and study that North American Jews need today in order to step forward, to prepare for a future that none of us can predict but each of us can influence for good. The trans community and the Jewish community—like so many minority communities—are deeply intertwined and overlapping.
We invite you to join us on Wednesday November 20 6:30-9:00 PM at SketchPad Chicago (4411 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago IL 60644) or, for those who are unable to join in person, via livestream. Together, we will perform a mitzvah: to remember.
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