"Jewish, Gay and Proud" : The founding of Beth Chayim Chadashim as a milestone of Jewish homosexual integration / Jill Wilkens

J. Wilkens

This study examines how the founding of Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) as a gay outreach synagogue was possibe in the early 1970's. I'll argue that Los Angeles was an ideal place for finding already existing paragons and supporting infrastructure. The leadership of the synagogue was dedicated and motivated to form a vivid congregation, which focused on the needs of its members, providing a safe space, and to rediscover a tradition that rejected queer Jews for what they were. They faced elementary questions like who should become a member of the congregation, how to bring Jews from different religious backgrounds together, or how gender roles needed to be challenged especially in a gay outreach synagogue. For most of the temple's members, it was the first time to merge their two shared identities as Jews and homosexuals. They realized that the joining of those two identities was not an impossible endeavor. The future vice-president of the temple, Rick Block, put this feeling in the following words: "Now I think of myself as Jewish, gay and proud." These three words - Jewish, gay and proud - became the slogan of the newborn synagogue.