Balancing on the Mechitza : Transgender in Jewish Community

N. Dzmura

While the mainstream still argues about homosexuality, many transgender and gender-variant people sit in congregations, serve their communities, marry under the chuppah, and otherwise go about the business of creating religious and secular Jewish families. Balancing on the Mechitza gives voice to this moment in Jewish culture. The contributors-activists, theologians, scholars, and others, both transgender and non-transgender allies-share for the first time in a printed volume their interpretations of classical Jewish texts about ambiguous bodies, as well as their sacred and secular stories of Jewish prayer, ritual, and social life. Essays included in Balancing on the Mechitza share the stories of a transwoman who lives an Orthodox Jewish life; a transman who serves as legal witness for a man (a role not typically open to persons designated female at birth) during a conversion ritual; and a gender-queer person who explores how to adapt the masculine and feminine pronouns in Hebrew to reflect a non-binary gender identity. Out of the successes of the feminist movement and the growth of the lesbian and gay rights movement, the "T" is emerging as a distinct Jewish population sounding a chorus of wise, critical, and inspiring voices.