Can jewish be gay

Do homosexuals fit into the Jewish community?. An instructive indication of the rare incidence of homosexuality among Jews may also be found in the interesting history of a legal enactment designed to prevent it. Shneer and K.

Aviv eds.

Homosexuality and Jewish Tradition

Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. Numerous organizations and support groups exist for gay Jews who are interested in maintaining a traditional Jewish lifestyle. To this end, R. Judah forbade two bachelors to sleep together under one blanket Kid.

Yet, a century later, R. A third objection is seen in the damage to family life, by the homosexual abandoning his wife Tos. Asher to Ned. Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism, 64f. This omission reflects the perceived absence of homosexuality among Jews rather than any difference of views on the criminality of these acts.

Jewish LGBT rights advocates and sympathetic clergy have created various institutions within Jewish life to accommodate gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender parishioners. All Rights Reserved. Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library.

Question: According to Jewish law, how should a person react to homosexual feelings? Among the sexual perversions proscribed as criminal offenses in the moral code of the Torah are homosexual relations between males Lev. Both offending parties are threatened with capital punishment Lev.

Talmudic law extends the prohibition, but not the penalty, which is limited to flagellation, also to lesbianism, i. The Bible refers to actual incidents involving homosexuality only in describing the abominations of the sinful city of Sodom, where the entire population demanded of Lot the surrender of his visitors that we may know them Gen.

For the Talmudic period, too, the records know of very few such incidents see TJ, Sanh. Boyarin et al. Steven Greenberg, a gay Jewish educator who was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi, writes and lectures on the possibilities for gays and lesbians in the Orthodox community.

Lamm, in: Jewish Life35 —68no.