Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

List of LGBT Jews

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List of LGBT Jews

This is a list of LGBT Jews. Each person is both Jewish (by ancestry or conversion) and has stated publicly that he or she is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ), or identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community. Being both Jewish and LGBTQ is a canonical (recognized) example of some facet of each person on this list, such that the below listed person's fame or significance flows from being both Jewish and LGBT.

Contents

In Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, editors Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini explain:

While there are no simple equations between Jewish and queer identities, Jewishness and queerness yet utilize and are bound up with one another in particularly resonant ways. This crossover also extends to the modern discourses of antisemitism and homophobia, with stereotypes of the Jew frequently underwriting pop cultural and scientific notions of the homosexual. And vice versa.

Politicians

  • Roberta Achtenberg, former HUD assistant secretary
  • David Cicilline, the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, member of the United States House of Representatives
  • Barney Frank, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives
  • Marcia Freedman, former member of the Israeli Knesset
  • Ron Galperin, City Controller of Los Angeles, first openly gay person elected citywide in Los Angeles
  • Nitzan Horowitz, Israeli Member of Knesset, first openly gay person elected to the Knesset
  • Rebecca Kaplan, City Councilmember At-Large, Oakland, California
  • Anne Kronenberg, American political administrator
  • Mark Leno, California State Assembly member
  • Carole Migden, former California State Senator
  • Harvey Milk, former San Francisco city supervisor
  • Jared Polis, the Colorado Democrat, a former Internet entrepreneur, became the first openly gay non-incumbent male elected to Congress
  • Stan Rosenberg, President Pro Tempore, Massachusetts State Senate
  • Barbra Casbar Siperstein, first openly trans* member of the DNC
  • Kathleen Wynne, First openly gay premier of the Canadian province of Ontario

    • Religious LGBT figures

  • Rebecca Alpert, lesbian professor in the Departments of Religion and Women's Studies at Temple University
  • Lionel Blue, the first British rabbi publicly to come out as gay; wrote Godly and Gay (1981)
  • Deborah Brin, one of the first openly gay rabbis and one of the first hundred women rabbis
  • Malka T. Drucker (b. 1945), American rabbi and author; ordained in 1998 from the Academy for Jewish Religion, a transdenominational seminary; founding rabbi of HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism, in Santa Fe, New Mexico
  • Denise Eger, first female and the first gay President of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California
  • Steven Greenberg (b. 1956), first out Orthodox rabbi and staff member of CLAL
  • Emily Aviva Kapor, first openly transgender female rabbi
  • Jason Klein, first openly gay man to head a national rabbinical association of a major US Jewish denominations (2013), when he was chosen as president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association; also the first Hillel director to hold the presidency; as of this election, he is the executive director of Hillel at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a post he has held since 2006; he will be president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association for two years
  • Sharon Kleinbaum, first rabbi of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, one of the most influential rabbis in the United States
  • Debra Kolodny, openly bisexual American rabbi; edited the first anthology by bisexual people of faith, Blessed Bi Spirit (2000), to which she contributed "Hear, I Pray You, This Dream Which I Have Dreamed," about Jewish identity and bisexuality
  • Stacy Offner, openly lesbian American rabbi who accomplished important firsts for women and lesbians in the Jewish community; first openly lesbian rabbi in a traditional congregation; first openly lesbian rabbi hired by a mainstream Jewish congregation; first female rabbi in Minnesota; first rabbi elected chaplain of the Minnesota Senate; first female vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism; first woman to serve on the US national rabbinical pension board
  • Toba Spitzer, first openly lesbian or gay person chosen to head a rabbinical association in the United States in 2007, when she was elected president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
  • Abby Stein, transgender activist, former Hasidic Jew
  • Margaret Wenig, American rabbi and instructor of liturgy and homiletics at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; in 1976, she and Naomi Janowitz self-published Siddur Nashim: A book of Sabbath Prayers for Women, the first Sabbath prayer book to refer to God with female pronouns and imagery; ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1984; in 1990 she wrote the sermon "God is a Woman and She is Growing Older," which as of 2011 has been published ten times (three times in German) and preached by rabbis from Australia to California
  • Sherwin Wine (1928-2007), rabbi and founding figure in Humanistic Judaism
  • Ron Yosef (b. 1974) (Hebrew: רון יוסף), Orthodox rabbi who helped found the Israeli organization Hod, which represents gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews; his organization has played a central part in the recent reevaluation of the role of religious homosexuals in the Israeli Religious Zionist movement
  • Reuben Zellman, American teacher, author, and assistant rabbi and music director at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, California; first openly transgender person accepted to the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati (2003); ordained by the seminary's Los Angeles campus in 2010

    • Academics

  • Mark Blechner, psychologist
  • Allan Bloom, philosopher
  • Judith Butler, philosopher
  • Martin Duberman, historian
  • Uzi Even, Israeli chemist and former Knesset member
  • Lillian Faderman, American lesbian historian
  • Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Director for the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California
  • Magnus Hirschfeld, sexologist and activist
  • Ron Huberman, Israeli-born CEO of Chicago Public Schools
  • Fritz Klein, psychiatrist and sexologist
  • Joy Ladin, English professor, first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution
  • Arlene Istar Lev, clinical social worker, family therapist, and educator
  • George Mosse, historian
  • Oliver Sacks, British neurologist, naturalist, and author
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher

    • Show business

  • Chantal Akerman, film director
  • Simon Amstell, comedian and television presenter
  • Michael Bennett, choreographer and musical theatre director
  • Sandra Bernhard, actress and comedian
  • Ilene Chaiken, creator of The L Word
  • George Cukor, film director
  • Billy Eichner, American comedian, host of Billy on the Street and recurring cast member of Parks and Recreation
  • Harvey Fierstein, actor and playwright
  • Eytan Fox, Israeli film director
  • Stephen Fry, actor, comedian and writer
  • Victor Garber, actor, comedian and writer
  • Judy Gold, stand-up comedian and actress
  • Julie Goldman, stand-up comedian
  • Todd Haynes, film director
  • Nicholas Hytner, theatre and film director
  • Moisés Kaufman, award-winning Venezuelan-born playwright and director, US resident
  • Max Rhyser, actor
  • Jerome Robbins, choreographer and musical theatre director
  • John Schlesinger, film director
  • Antony Sher, actor
  • Bryan Singer, film director
  • Mauritz Stiller, film director
  • Bruce Vilanch, comedy writer and actor

    • Musicians, composers, lyricists, and vocalists

  • Howard Ashman, musical writer
  • Babydaddy, member of Scissor Sisters
  • Frieda Belinfante, conductor (Jewish father)
  • Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor
  • Marc Blitzstein, composer
  • Carrie Brownstein, guitarist in Sleater-Kinney
  • Aaron Copland, composer
  • Joel Derfner, musical theatre composer
  • Fred Ebb, musical theatre lyricist
  • Michael Feinstein, singer and pianist
  • William Finn, musical theatre composer, lyricist and librettist
  • God-Des (of God-Des and She)
  • Ari Gold, pop singer
  • Lesley Gore, pop singer
  • Howard Greenfield, composer ("Love Will Keep Us Together", TV theme song from Bewitched)
  • Lorenz Hart, lyricist
  • Jerry Herman, musical theatre composer and lyricist
  • Vladimir Horowitz, classical pianist
  • Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink), American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author
  • Dana International, Israeli pop singer
  • Dave Koz (born David Kozlowski), jazz saxophonist
  • Adam Lambert, singer and runner-up on the 8th season of American Idol
  • Jack Lawrence, composer and former president of ASCAP
  • Barry Manilow, singer and songwriter
  • Jon Moss, drummer, member of Culture Club and The Damned
  • Laura Nyro, singer-songwriter
  • Peaches, Canadian electro-punk musician and performance artist
  • Phranc, singer-songwriter
  • Lou Reed, guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground
  • Marc Shaiman, musical theatre and film composer
  • Troye Sivan, South African-born YouTuber and actor
  • Socalled, rapper
  • Stephen Sondheim, musical theatre composer and lyricist
  • Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, composer, and pianist

    • Writers

  • Leroy F. Aarons, journalist, editor, author, playwright, activist founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA)
  • Kathy Acker, bisexual sex-positive feminist, novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist and postmodernist
  • Jon Robin Baitz, playwright and screenwriter
  • Steve Berman, speculative fiction writer
  • Betty Berzon, author, first psychotherapist in America to come out as gay to the public (1971)
  • Kate Bornstein, writer, playwright, performance artist, gender theorist
  • Jane Bowles, novelist and playwright
  • Alfred Chester, novelist
  • Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media (Jewish mother)
  • Joel Derfner, writer and memoirist
  • Elana Dykewomon, American novelist
  • Shiri Eisner, Israeli activist, writer, blogger, and researcher
  • György Faludy, poet
  • Leslie Feinberg, activist, author
  • Edward Field, poet
  • Sanford Friedman, novelist
  • Masha Gessen, journalist, author, and activist
  • Allen Ginsberg, US Beat generation poet
  • Richard Greenberg, playwright
  • Jacob Israël de Haan, poet
  • Marilyn Hacker, poet
  • Aaron Hamburger, novelist
  • Max Jacob, poet
  • Chester Kallman, poet and librettist
  • Tony Kushner, playwright and screenwriter
  • Stephen Laughton, playwright
  • Arthur Laurents, playwright, screenwriter and librettist
  • David Leavitt, novelist and short-story writer
  • Leo Lerman, writer/editor
  • Michael Lowenthal, novelist
  • Jay Michaelson, writer, columnist, author of God vs. Gay?
  • Herbert Muschamp (1947–2007), New York Times architecture critic
  • Leslea Newman, children's book author, short story writer, editor
  • Harold Norse, poet
  • Marcel Proust, novelist (Jewish mother)
  • David Rakoff, essayist
  • Lev Raphael, novelist, memoirist, short story writer, and pioneer in writing about children of Holocaust survivors. Author of the ground-breaking collection Dancing on Tisha B'Av, some of whose stories originally appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
  • Paul Rudnick, playwright, screenwriter and columnist
  • Siegfried Sassoon, poet (Jewish father)
  • Martin Sherman, playwright
  • Andrew Solomon, writer on politics, culture and psychology
  • Susan Sontag, essayist and novelist
  • Gertrude Stein, writer
  • Julian Stryjkowski, novelist
  • Gaby Dunn, writer, journalist, comedian, and actress

    • Artists and architects

  • Claude Cahun, French photographer and writer
  • Robert Denning, American interior designer, from the age of 15 was the partner of Edgar de Evia, photographer and from 1960 both life and business partner of Vincent Fourcade, French interior designer
  • Nan Goldin, photographer
  • Herbert List, photographer
  • Maurice Sendak, illustrator and author of children's books as well as costume and set designer for films, theater and opera
  • Simeon Solomon, painter
  • Uri Gershuni, Israel photographer and educator.
  • Adi Nes, Israeli photographer.

    • Fashion designers

  • Arnold Scaasi, Canadian-born American fashion designer
  • Isaac Mizrahi, American fashion designer
  • Michael Kors, American sportswear fashion designer.

    • Sports figures

  • Robert Dover, six-time Olympic equestrianist
  • Renée Richards, tennis player
  • Thomas PUPÁ, JV Bench

    • Miscellaneous

  • Gad Beck, Holocaust survivor and memoirist
  • Barbara Brenner, breast cancer activist and leader of Breast Cancer Action
  • Roy Cohn, lawyer and co-counsel (with Robert F. Kennedy) to Sen. Joseph McCarthy
  • Barry Diller, media executive
  • Sandi Simcha DuBowski, documentary filmmaker
  • Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles
  • Israel David Fishman, founder of the Task Force on Gay Liberation, a section of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA), precursor of ALA's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Round Table
  • Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, first transgender person in the role of LGBT liaison to the White House
  • David Geffen, film producer and record executive
  • Mitchell Gold, furniture company CEO and gay rights activist
  • Surat Shaan Rathgeber Knan, British transgender educator and activist
  • Michael Lucas, gay porn star
  • Ezra Nawi, Israeli human rights activist
  • Ari Shapiro, American radio journalist
  • Joel Simkhai, Grindr founder and CEO
  • Randi Weingarten, current president of the American Federation of Teachers
  • Riki Wilchins, activist

    • References

    List of LGBT Jews Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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