Changes in Israel
When I was living in Israel, I knew Avigail Sperber, and I knew some of the things in this article. But I had no idea how much progress had been made since I left almost 5 years ago.
I'm reprinting this article without permission from the English version of Haaretz. If they ask me to take it down and just link, I'll do that.
'Frightening, but liberating'
By Yair Sheleg
Last Update: 11/11/2006 11:37
Twelve years ago, when Avigail Sperber attended Jerusalem's Ma'ale School of Television, Film and the Arts, a religious institution, she fell in love - with a female classmate.
"Looking back," she recalled, "I felt 'all sorts of things' even in adolescence. However, since I wasn't yet familiar with the term 'lesbian,' I didn't know what was going on. At Ma'ale one of my classmates was a girl named Efrat and gradually we realized we were falling in love. For three years we broke up, got back together and again broke up, and it was agonizing. One day, somebody remarked to my mother that it was rather strange that we spent all our time together and that perhaps we were ... Well, one Friday night, my mother came into my room when Efrat was with me and said, 'I know you're lesbians. As far as I'm concerned, you can do whatever you like, but not in this house!'
"It was very frightening, but also very liberating because what I had feared most had happened. Fortunately, my ties with my parents were never severed, although I was forced to leave the house and to move with Efrat into a rented apartment. My parents couldn't direct their anger at me so they channeled it toward Efrat, as if she'd betrayed their trust."
Avigail's mother, Hannah, a marriage counselor, explained that her anger stemmed from "mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was angry that she had hidden the fact from us, as if she couldn't trust her relationship with us. On the other hand, I felt guilty for not having discovered the truth earlier and I sensed that, had I discovered the warning signs in time, I might have had some influence on her identity before it crystallized."
Avigail Sperber, 33, is a film director and cinematographer. She has made several documentaries and a short movie, and is currently working on her first full-length film. Her father is Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber, who teaches Talmud at Bar-Ilan University and received the Israel Prize for his achievements in his field. For many years, he chaired the public council for state religious Jewish education. Sperber found it especially difficult to accept the disclosure of his daughter's sexual identity. However, his public position, Avigail stresses, was never a factor in her family's acceptance of her lesbianism.
"At first," she said, "Mom asked me not to reveal that I was a lesbian - principally so as not to burden my younger siblings [Avigail is the third of 10 children, including one adopted Ethiopian daughter - Y.S.], but my father's public standing was never a consideration. To this day, Dad doesn't like talking about the subject and will do so only if someone raises it in a conversation with him."
It was Hannah who spearheaded the family's acceptance of Avigail's identity: "I grew up in a Reform Jewish home in America," she explained. "It was a more open setting, so it was easier for me to accept Avigail's sexual orientation. Initially, my husband didn't even want to hear about it. He told me, 'I know you can persuade me to accept many things, but I'm not willing to be persuaded on this topic.' For me, the process was lengthy, but the decisive moment was when Avigail announced: 'If you knew how hard it was for me to accept myself with this identity, you would understand that I cannot be in a place where I'm not accepted.'"
That is what spurred Hannah to begin to invite Avigail and her partners over for family dinners. The process moved forward significantly when Avigail was asked to give her first interview, a few years ago, about her lesbianism.
Avigail: "I phoned my mother and asked her what she thought. A few days later, she phoned back and said, 'I think it's very important that you give the interview, so that people will know there are also religious families that accept their gay or lesbian children, and that this is legitimate.'"
Reading and meeting
For Avigail, the high point in her family's acceptance of her was reached a year ago, when her younger sister Shuli, who had become ultra-Orthodox, was to be married to a young man who had also become ultra-Orthodox. It was considered only natural to invite both Avigail and her present partner, film director Netali Baron (whose film, "Metamorphosis," about four rape victims, was screened this week on Israel Television's Channel 1). Hannah felt this was not enough and began inviting other lesbian friends of Avigail's whose families had severed contact with them. ("Some girls are no longer welcome in their own homes, even on holidays, even without their partner.")
Two years ago, Hannah started a support group for the religious parents of homosexual/lesbian children (fathers were invited, but only the mothers actually attended). Monthly meetings were held at the Sperber home in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Over the past few months they have not met, but Hannah said this week that the controversy generated by the gay pride parade is a good reason to reactivate the group.
Hannah: "Initially, I attended a parental support group at the Open House [a center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or GLBT, community in Jerusalem]. However, some parents didn't like going there. That's why I launched the group in my home. There are various levels of attitude with respect to the children in this group. One mother, who's very extreme, said she wouldn't invite her daughter to the weddings or other occasions of her siblings. Another mother, a widow, moved me when she declared that she loved her homosexual son very much. Her greatest fear was that he would stop being religious.
"The first step in dealing with the issue is to read the professional literature and to realize that anyone who claims that tackling this problem is like tackling any other prohibition in the Torah doesn't understand the issue. Although a certain percentage could become straight with psychological help and immense willpower, for the majority this isn't an option. At first, it's very hard to talk about it directly with your child. So the best thing is to read the letters or books our children give us about the subject - these are helpful. Meetings with other parents are also important because, through them, you learn you're not the only one facing this problem.
"The crucial step is recognizing that the situation will never change. In this respect, there is a similarity with bereaved parents: Once you realize the situation will never change and that your child will never return, you can begin the journey back to life. On the other hand, the goal here is to make the parents recognize that they need not mourn, because their child isn't dead. And the main thing: They must remember that the most important rule in the Torah is 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' That might sound simplistic, but it's the best advice you can give."
'Caustic reactions'
Avigail Sperber also started her own group, Bat Kol, for religious lesbians, which today numbers 60 women members. "Most of them have been living with their partners for years and remind me of my straight girlfriends: bourgeois religious girls, in the good and bad senses of the term."
Bat Kol's goals are to change religious society's attitude toward gays and lesbians, and also to provide a support group for lesbians in distress via a telephone information service and an Internet forum. "We're particularly active before the holidays," Avigail explained, "when we provide hospitality for girls with no family to return to for the holidays."
There was a time when she debated with herself about whether to remain in the religious community: "I knew I would always observe kashrut [Jewish dietary laws], but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to remain in a community that wouldn't accept me. Ultimately, I realized that one of the beauties of religious life is that it ties you to a community. And that's what I want."
Avigail said she did not join a Reform or Conservative synagogue because she was seeking a community like the one she had grown up in: Orthodox and open-minded. When she spends the Sabbath with her parents in Jerusalem, she likes to attend prayer services at Shira Hadasha, an egalitarian Orthodox congregation. When she spends the Sabbath in her Tel Aviv apartment, she walks a considerable distance to attend Ichud Shivat Zion, a congregation founded by young religious people of a kindred spirit, in one of the city's oldest synagogues: "One Sabbath I wanted to attend Beit Tefillah Yisraeli [a secular congregation that holds Friday evening prayer services - Y.S.], which isn't far from my home. However, I had a problem because the services include desecration of the Sabbath."
Avigail's world has again been shaken - this time by Jerusalem's gay pride parade. Someone told her about crude attacks on the community on the Web site of the Ezra youth movement where she had been a member and later a counselor. (Ezra is more ultra-Orthodox than the Bnei Akiva movement and was originally identified with the Poalei Agudat Israel party.) Avigail looked at the site and was shocked. ("The less virulent messages said that Ezra members "should break [the homosexuals'] arms and legs.") She decided to respond with her own message, in which she declared: "I grew up in this movement, which means that today some Ezra members might be gays or lesbians."
Avigail and Hannah Sperber are divided over the parade. Avigail attaches immense importance to it: "Despite the caustic reactions, the religious community is finally talking about the subject and is beginning to realize it has homosexual and lesbian members. It's more important to hold a gay pride parade in Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv because being gay in Tel Aviv is not much of a problem."
Hannah opposes it: "It is only generating hatred. It isn't promoting social acceptance of the GLBT community and, in this respect, it doesn't matter where it is held ... Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. What we need is encounters and events that will encourage understanding and a closer familiarity with the subject. We don't need an event that will only breed more hatred."
I'm reprinting this article without permission from the English version of Haaretz. If they ask me to take it down and just link, I'll do that.
'Frightening, but liberating'
By Yair Sheleg
Last Update: 11/11/2006 11:37
Twelve years ago, when Avigail Sperber attended Jerusalem's Ma'ale School of Television, Film and the Arts, a religious institution, she fell in love - with a female classmate.
"Looking back," she recalled, "I felt 'all sorts of things' even in adolescence. However, since I wasn't yet familiar with the term 'lesbian,' I didn't know what was going on. At Ma'ale one of my classmates was a girl named Efrat and gradually we realized we were falling in love. For three years we broke up, got back together and again broke up, and it was agonizing. One day, somebody remarked to my mother that it was rather strange that we spent all our time together and that perhaps we were ... Well, one Friday night, my mother came into my room when Efrat was with me and said, 'I know you're lesbians. As far as I'm concerned, you can do whatever you like, but not in this house!'
"It was very frightening, but also very liberating because what I had feared most had happened. Fortunately, my ties with my parents were never severed, although I was forced to leave the house and to move with Efrat into a rented apartment. My parents couldn't direct their anger at me so they channeled it toward Efrat, as if she'd betrayed their trust."
Avigail's mother, Hannah, a marriage counselor, explained that her anger stemmed from "mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was angry that she had hidden the fact from us, as if she couldn't trust her relationship with us. On the other hand, I felt guilty for not having discovered the truth earlier and I sensed that, had I discovered the warning signs in time, I might have had some influence on her identity before it crystallized."
Avigail Sperber, 33, is a film director and cinematographer. She has made several documentaries and a short movie, and is currently working on her first full-length film. Her father is Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber, who teaches Talmud at Bar-Ilan University and received the Israel Prize for his achievements in his field. For many years, he chaired the public council for state religious Jewish education. Sperber found it especially difficult to accept the disclosure of his daughter's sexual identity. However, his public position, Avigail stresses, was never a factor in her family's acceptance of her lesbianism.
"At first," she said, "Mom asked me not to reveal that I was a lesbian - principally so as not to burden my younger siblings [Avigail is the third of 10 children, including one adopted Ethiopian daughter - Y.S.], but my father's public standing was never a consideration. To this day, Dad doesn't like talking about the subject and will do so only if someone raises it in a conversation with him."
It was Hannah who spearheaded the family's acceptance of Avigail's identity: "I grew up in a Reform Jewish home in America," she explained. "It was a more open setting, so it was easier for me to accept Avigail's sexual orientation. Initially, my husband didn't even want to hear about it. He told me, 'I know you can persuade me to accept many things, but I'm not willing to be persuaded on this topic.' For me, the process was lengthy, but the decisive moment was when Avigail announced: 'If you knew how hard it was for me to accept myself with this identity, you would understand that I cannot be in a place where I'm not accepted.'"
That is what spurred Hannah to begin to invite Avigail and her partners over for family dinners. The process moved forward significantly when Avigail was asked to give her first interview, a few years ago, about her lesbianism.
Avigail: "I phoned my mother and asked her what she thought. A few days later, she phoned back and said, 'I think it's very important that you give the interview, so that people will know there are also religious families that accept their gay or lesbian children, and that this is legitimate.'"
Reading and meeting
For Avigail, the high point in her family's acceptance of her was reached a year ago, when her younger sister Shuli, who had become ultra-Orthodox, was to be married to a young man who had also become ultra-Orthodox. It was considered only natural to invite both Avigail and her present partner, film director Netali Baron (whose film, "Metamorphosis," about four rape victims, was screened this week on Israel Television's Channel 1). Hannah felt this was not enough and began inviting other lesbian friends of Avigail's whose families had severed contact with them. ("Some girls are no longer welcome in their own homes, even on holidays, even without their partner.")
Two years ago, Hannah started a support group for the religious parents of homosexual/lesbian children (fathers were invited, but only the mothers actually attended). Monthly meetings were held at the Sperber home in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City. Over the past few months they have not met, but Hannah said this week that the controversy generated by the gay pride parade is a good reason to reactivate the group.
Hannah: "Initially, I attended a parental support group at the Open House [a center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, or GLBT, community in Jerusalem]. However, some parents didn't like going there. That's why I launched the group in my home. There are various levels of attitude with respect to the children in this group. One mother, who's very extreme, said she wouldn't invite her daughter to the weddings or other occasions of her siblings. Another mother, a widow, moved me when she declared that she loved her homosexual son very much. Her greatest fear was that he would stop being religious.
"The first step in dealing with the issue is to read the professional literature and to realize that anyone who claims that tackling this problem is like tackling any other prohibition in the Torah doesn't understand the issue. Although a certain percentage could become straight with psychological help and immense willpower, for the majority this isn't an option. At first, it's very hard to talk about it directly with your child. So the best thing is to read the letters or books our children give us about the subject - these are helpful. Meetings with other parents are also important because, through them, you learn you're not the only one facing this problem.
"The crucial step is recognizing that the situation will never change. In this respect, there is a similarity with bereaved parents: Once you realize the situation will never change and that your child will never return, you can begin the journey back to life. On the other hand, the goal here is to make the parents recognize that they need not mourn, because their child isn't dead. And the main thing: They must remember that the most important rule in the Torah is 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' That might sound simplistic, but it's the best advice you can give."
'Caustic reactions'
Avigail Sperber also started her own group, Bat Kol, for religious lesbians, which today numbers 60 women members. "Most of them have been living with their partners for years and remind me of my straight girlfriends: bourgeois religious girls, in the good and bad senses of the term."
Bat Kol's goals are to change religious society's attitude toward gays and lesbians, and also to provide a support group for lesbians in distress via a telephone information service and an Internet forum. "We're particularly active before the holidays," Avigail explained, "when we provide hospitality for girls with no family to return to for the holidays."
There was a time when she debated with herself about whether to remain in the religious community: "I knew I would always observe kashrut [Jewish dietary laws], but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to remain in a community that wouldn't accept me. Ultimately, I realized that one of the beauties of religious life is that it ties you to a community. And that's what I want."
Avigail said she did not join a Reform or Conservative synagogue because she was seeking a community like the one she had grown up in: Orthodox and open-minded. When she spends the Sabbath with her parents in Jerusalem, she likes to attend prayer services at Shira Hadasha, an egalitarian Orthodox congregation. When she spends the Sabbath in her Tel Aviv apartment, she walks a considerable distance to attend Ichud Shivat Zion, a congregation founded by young religious people of a kindred spirit, in one of the city's oldest synagogues: "One Sabbath I wanted to attend Beit Tefillah Yisraeli [a secular congregation that holds Friday evening prayer services - Y.S.], which isn't far from my home. However, I had a problem because the services include desecration of the Sabbath."
Avigail's world has again been shaken - this time by Jerusalem's gay pride parade. Someone told her about crude attacks on the community on the Web site of the Ezra youth movement where she had been a member and later a counselor. (Ezra is more ultra-Orthodox than the Bnei Akiva movement and was originally identified with the Poalei Agudat Israel party.) Avigail looked at the site and was shocked. ("The less virulent messages said that Ezra members "should break [the homosexuals'] arms and legs.") She decided to respond with her own message, in which she declared: "I grew up in this movement, which means that today some Ezra members might be gays or lesbians."
Avigail and Hannah Sperber are divided over the parade. Avigail attaches immense importance to it: "Despite the caustic reactions, the religious community is finally talking about the subject and is beginning to realize it has homosexual and lesbian members. It's more important to hold a gay pride parade in Jerusalem than in Tel Aviv because being gay in Tel Aviv is not much of a problem."
Hannah opposes it: "It is only generating hatred. It isn't promoting social acceptance of the GLBT community and, in this respect, it doesn't matter where it is held ... Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. What we need is encounters and events that will encourage understanding and a closer familiarity with the subject. We don't need an event that will only breed more hatred."
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