Jumping into the conversation, this is different than what we usually have, but the lgbtq life in the Safe Community and Jewish Community, lets start out and asked each of you what your community your experiences been in the Jewish Community. Maxine. I will date myself, so i him twice last. Being a lesbian and being jewish was very difficult because i did not come out until graduate school. I did not think that being [ null ] had anything to being jewish, and i had no role model, and no one to model myself after. I did not think that i could be jewish and [ null ] until i met someone in graduate school at the same seminary that i attended as a commuter communal professional studying nonprofit management. And my first lover was at the college at usc and i realized that the heavens opened. Talking about intersection analogy, two primary parts of myself that became integrated. Reverend . You know, it is a very similar in very different story for me. Being transgender, the Trans Community is one that may say in broad strokes, running similar experiences perhaps, 30 to 40 years after the gay and lesbian people, and the kind of stories you are telling are those that the gay people are experiencing right now. I get calls from all of the world because i am a transgender rabbi. I get emails, postcards, people that are having the very experience that you described, growing up in the synagogue, and they think they are the only trans jewish person in the world, and they are reaching out to talk with someone. Or they are perhaps struggling because they believe what many people have believed, which is that the jewish life is no place for those that are nonconforming gender. But thank goodness that is no longer true, but still true too much of the time. Between the two of you, there is a generational difference, and all kinds of liberations, struggles, and changing language by experience or waste that we integrate into the community. One of the words in the lgbtq is the queue for [ null ] that word was degrading and is over the years been reclaimed by the Lgbtq Community is a word that is affirming. Im wondering if between the two of you that you could comment on the transition because in some ways you embody the language shift. I have always reclaimed the dike and lesbian and much more comfortable with that word because it meant everything that i thought i was, meaning funny, smart, thoughtful, empowered to be who i was. I am comfortable, and would love it if it was dgbgtq, as opposed to l, but that is just me. There were all of these reporters calling me for a number of reasons, and surprising. I identified as [ null ] because i was 24, and everybody was starting to use [ null ]. Even though we all grew up with it is the schoolyard insults, but it was right at that time when we began to try to say that we actually need a different word. I think the feeling among my den generation my generation is that we need a different word because gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual all have different meaning, and it is more of an expansive identity that means not just about the personal nature, but about the certain political lines, a certain political orientation, and [ null ] to me means a different thing. It does not mean what they used to call us on the school bus. Thank you so much, rabbi and maxine, we will take a quick break and return to this conversation, and in honor of lgbtq pride month, join us back in a moment on mosaic. Good while earning good morning welcome back to mosaic, and i am rabbi eric weiss and happy to be your host, and we have some special guests in honor of lgbtq pride month, and we have maxine, and rabbi reuben zellman, and welcome back. You were talking about the shift in language, and your relative experiences in the Jewish Community around the lgbtq issues and landscape, and i wonder if you could talk a little bit about the institutional changes you have seen over the years and in the places in which you work that cover maybe some of the social shifts and theological shifts. Shift that people do not necessarily think of because they are not miss their late overtly political or something that the news reports on. Rabbi, what you reflect on in that way . Ive worked in synagogues for 15 years, and it is an ongoing evolution to figure out how to we not just say sure, lgbtq people are welcome to walk in here. But when we do walkin, does what is going on in the synagogue speak to our life and reflect who we are . Does it include the things that are most important to us, and that is where some parts of the Jewish Community have done wonderful work, and others have not started that part yet. For example, one thing that has been very important for the Lgbtq Community is gender equality and talking about god in prayer. And the hebrew prayers talk about god is he all the time. And one thing being dealt with this who says that god is a he, and what is gender anyway. So we have to reframe those questions, and perhaps putting in a genderneutral prayerbook. Or if we are calling someone to the torah and their hebrew name is by the son of someone or the daughter of someone, traditional formula, but what if someone does not identify as a male or female, and we need to come up with ways of making these names. Those are the things we have been engaged in, fascinating, wonderful and sometimes very challenging work. And when someone is called to the torah to have the honor of having the bible portion read in their honor, and in that sequence, someone is named by the hebrew name and the formula is so and so, the sun or the daughter of, and they mean the parent. It is interesting on that Simple Church experience, that we have this very deep conversation that talks how we encapsulate god. 10 to 15 years ago, none of us ever thought of this as a problem, and now we realize we have limitations that we need to address. And these are things that people may think we do not think are an issue that need to be highlighted. Working at a high school, is a a high school teenager, it is the age of ism and teenagers are grappling with their identity. I love working at this high school, and i have daughter at this high school, and it is not only a rigorous academic place to study, but it educates the whole person. It helps every single student become the best of who they are, and to they will be. It is small because the faculty can get this to every student, the we have a number of students that have come out recently, and in a very loving and supportive environment, and that would never have happened when i was in High School Year it has transgender students. The logo on the bathroom even to that point, and we never thought of that, and it is all gender. It is a pluralistic place to be. I wish it was here when i was a teenager, not just from the religious observance, but just being who you are naturally, and accepting that. And more than just tolerant of it, but understanding it. It is the subtext of what youre saying, in the faith based framework, within a jewish context, we are moving toward not just welcoming un, but saying that god approves of you, and that you reflect god as you are as much as any other person. Just the fact that we do not necessarily have the language attached to it does not make you any less legitimate, and it could be something as simple as a gender identity restroom. It is something that has always existed but we are discovering in the context. It is making all of us walked the walk, whether you are a teenager that does not believe in god whatsoever, there is still a place for you at the high school because it is pluralistic. And god loves us all. We will say goodbye to you, rabbi, and welcome a another guest, and maxine will remain with us through the duration of the soul the show, and we will continue with mosaic in a moment. , welcome back to mosaic, and i am rabbi eric weiss, and we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation is june for lgbtq pride month, and the lb gtq pride like in the Jewish Community, and we introduce you to jean goldstein, and welcome. A pleasure to be here. Ketchup is an organization based in boston and they do work all around the country, down to 20 years ago in a very different environment. At the time it was very hard for those that work with the lgbtq to feel they could live a fully integrated life, and they had to leave their lgbtq identity out the door, and we were trying to make it a world where people could be [ null ] and jewish queer and jewish , and welcoming people and making them more accepted. The Reference Point from the faith based perspective, and the rainbow being seen after the flood, and from the jewish perspective, meaning a covenant. And in the Jewish Community also means the bow and arrow, and moving forward in the words. What is your experience at in the Jewish Community . I am secondgeneration gay, my parents are lesbian, and i grew up going to a synagogue in part of the conservative movement, and we had very few issues. We were fully accepted by the congregations, and there were always a few people that were surprised or did not know how to react, but i never felt discrimination or unwelcome. But speaking to what ruben was saying previously, there are Still Corners where people are less tolerant and less accepting, less able to comprehend. There was an orthodox prayer gathering that met on the lower level of the synagogue every week. It was a much smaller community, and they would speak out for people to join them, to create the 10 people that you need to have a prayer service, they would recruit from upstairs. One time i joined them and was brought down there, and they would not call me up is the son of two women, and they insisted on calling me up is the son of abraham, which you do generically when you do not know who someones parents are, or when they are adopted and you dont know who their parents are. I knew at that moment i was not comfortable with it and they were not accepting me my family for who we really were, and i felt something i had never felt before and i never went back downstairs. Based on this experience, where are the places we feel we need to be better to explore in Getting Better in our Juice Community . Is a mother of twin daughters who went to a Jewish Day School, we were the first two mommy family to go to the Jewish Day School in marin, and i will never forget when the kids were in first grade we got a call from a parent who said, what do you mean that you are a two mommy family . And they said they knew the year son was in the daughters class and they said we had made it very difficult for them because their son wanted to know why they did not have two mommys as well, and i said i guess you were unlucky. And that was the conversation, and what a trailblazer your parents were. There is a lot of work still to do, and as much as we accept and try, there are the nice people that do not say anything in front of us, but they will always be behind closed doors. We talked about the intersection analogy, the particular worse to come out of the social justice arena regarding race, and for you more globally for other kinds of integration of identity. In this particular context, jewish and lb gtq, and also compounded by the juice of color. Jews of color, and do you feel like there are sometimes more jewish advancement and lgbtq advancement and not always in sync with one another. How you work with that issue within the context of the Jewish Community either personally or professionally . A big part of the work that were doing right now on the bay area is just letting the Community Know that we exist, that we are here and there are people that share both of these identities that are both jewish and lgbtq. And is that was said in the previous segment, and they think they are the only one in that they must be so rare. We have Found Community programs were week have a Faith Based Community where those that are jewish and lgbtq that can come together and share their identities, and they discover there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people in the bay area that share the combined backgrounds, and they gain a lot by coming together and seeing that you are not alone. That there are so many people that are out there that share these experiences, and you connect over them. We will take a quick break and come back to continue this conversation in a moment. Good morning and welcome back to mosaic. We are about to finish a wonderful conversation in honor of the lgbtq month in the bay area and nationwide. We want to reintroduce you to maxine epstein, the director of Institutional Investment at the high school in the bay, and our Community Program manager for tran9 in the bay area and welcome back. We have a little bit of time left. Having a conversation about places that still have darkness that need light shed on them in ways in the Jewish Community, and there needs to be more progress and advancement. Maxine, what are your reflections on the issue . Speaking as a woman, gay or not gay, jewish or not jewish, within our community, still making 79 cents on the dollar, and a very straight heterosexual male run organization across the board, so there is always disadvantages of being female is a communal professional. Working in the Jewish Community, nonprofit management, and it is the system. It is a corporate model were even social workers are being replaced lawyers or business executives. And that because whomever thinks that running a nonprofit like a forprofit is the way to go. And i do not necessarily agree. It reminds me that now we have orlando. Orlando has become a word with tremendous potency attached to it, not just a city on a map, and it means a lot. We will end up mining that in pursing that for many years to come. In that context, it was not just the largest domestic terror shooting in our country, but predominantly to the Lgbt Community and Latin Community because this particular lgbt club was having its latin night. And the community has responded in orlando as we seed with tremendous love and attention on many different levels. I wonder how you think of the simple inspirational level where it seems that even in the bay area, people can feel alone and alienated even in a place where the lgbtq is so predominant, and so i just wonder is a place that we still need to get to, in a couple of sentences, what is a reflection on what is that lack of relationship . What is the elimination and aloneness . There are moments of light and hope, and the jchs and it what id love about where i work, one of the youngest victims, akira murray that was only 18 and graduated from a small high school, eight faithbased and parochial high school. I think it was the west Catholic High School in philadelphia, and our school since sent letters of condolences. We have a couple of seconds, and you have a sentence or two . In our work with teenagers across the country is the most urgent work to do. There is still a high rate of bullying and lack of acceptance of teenagers directed at the Lgbtq Community across the country, and to work and to bring together queer teenagers. Thank you so much for being with us here on mosaic. Have a wonderful day and happy lgbtq pride month. Again again again again again . Again again General Mills is removing artificial flavors and colors from our cereals. So you can love cereal. Again our pitch. If you have a idea. We would love to from you. Go to facebook dot com slash bay sunday and welcome to a bay sunday, and i am your host, kenny choi. And we would love to hear from you if you have an idea, and you can go to our Facebook Page and comment. We have the executive director of the oakland youth chorus and enriching lives for the music program. First lets talk about the book, so much to be done and barbara brenner, and her partner of 30 years, suzy lanford, and the former communications director. Good morning and thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about barbara wh