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This Purim, a space for queer Jews to celebrate their identities — and dance the night away
(New York Jewish Week) — Stuart Meyers grew up in the heavily Jewish Philadelphia suburb of Voorhees Township, New Jersey. Yet, even though he was Jewish, being queer meant that he often felt like an outsider in Jewish spaces.
Fortunately, as an adult, Meyers — a dancer, artist and nightlife events producer — realized that, instead of abandoning one identity in lieu of another, he could create a vibrant space for queer Jews to celebrate both aspects of their identities.
“I didn’t have an experience [growing up] of being able to bridge my queer and Jewish identities — I just was made to feel like they couldn’t coexist,” Meyers, 32, told the New York Jewish Week. “I started to have this desire and longing to understand what it meant to be Jewish and bring these two identities together.”
In 2021, the Bushwick, Brooklyn resident developed “Flaminggg,” a queer Jewish nightlife experience that aims to bring Jews of all gender expressions and sexual orientations together to loudly and proudly celebrate their Jewish and queer identities. (The name, Meyers said, stuck around after he threw his first Hanukkah party. “It was easy to affirm: We are a fiery, bright burning bunch whose light, despite it all, is eternal.”)
Flaminggg parties, of which there have been four so far, include DJ sets that incorporate pop music, house music and Jewish music, as well as drag performances, dancing, conversation and Jewish rituals. Next week, Flaminggg will host “Flamingggtaschen,” its second-ever Purim party on March 4, at 3 Dollar Bill, a queer club in East Williamsburg. These days, the winter holiday, when cross-dressing and role-playing are commonly a part of even traditional festivities, is often associated with queer pride and a celebration of coming out,
“It’s a sensitive thing,” Meyers said. “People who are queer but secular often say, ‘I do not want to be in a Jewish space.’” Some queer Jews had experiences growing up where they didn’t feel like they belonged, while others were unsure of what to expect, he said. Still others have participated in — and not enjoyed — queer Jewish events that are “not sexy” and felt antiquated, he said.
“I think being queer and Jewish is sexy, magnificent and magical and so related and I want to share that,” Meyers said. “That is the driving belief in what I’m trying to create.”
A drag performer at Flaminggg’s Hanukkah party in December 2022. (Afrik Armando)
Meyers believes that Flaminggg is the first intentionally Jewish nightlife experience for queer adult Jews that is unattached to a synagogue or larger Jewish organization. “It felt like no one was doing this kind of programming, that was artistically and thoughtfully making queer Jewish space in a way that was not just a ‘bright fluorescent lights, community hall,’ kind of Judaism, which I feel like a lot of people want to steer clear from because it just doesn’t feel meaningful,” Meyers said, adding: “Those bright overheads don’t flatter a queen’s skin!”
Of course, there are other organizations and companies that create events for LGBTQ Jews, such as Hebro and Jewish Queer Youth. While Meyers has worked with both in the past, they serve different demographics — cisgender gay men and younger adults mostly with Orthodox backgrounds, for instance. New York City synagogues and Jewish spaces like Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and Lab/Shul are also queer-driven, but, again, secular Jews may still be turned off by some of the synagogue and Jewish ritual aspects. (Meyers is also producing and hosting Lab/Shul’s Purim party extravaganza at House of Yes this year, which will feature drag performances, a Purim spiel and a dance party.)
Flaminggg, by contrast, aims to draw a diverse crowd — participants represent all sexualities and genders, and the parties are open to any level of religious observance (or not). Meyers hopes that his events will reach people who have previously not entered Jewish spaces and want to learn more about and celebrate Judaism and queerness in all its forms and nuances.
And, of course, Flaminggg differs from other queer, Jewish events in that it is a nightlife-oriented, night-long party. Quoting Jewish anarchist political activist Emma Goldman during a Zoom interview, Meyers joked: “If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.”
This year Purim’s party, which is set to run from from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., will include a spiel (a comic retelling of the Purim story), a DJ set and other diverse queer Jewish performances. Meyers expects around 300 attendees.
“I’ve basically been waiting for this Purim party ever since the Hanukkah party ended,” Yochai Greenfeld, a drag performer who performed at Flaminggg’s 2022 Hanukkah party, told the New York Jewish Week.
That event, he added, was “probably one of the best parties of my life.”
“There are a ton of Jewish spaces to party in, but those tend to be somewhat uninviting for queer people to express themselves within those spaces,” said Greenfield, whose drag persona is named “Abbi Gezunt” (Yiddish for “so long as you’re healthy”). “The queer party scene is also mega-oversaturated, and there are tons of different spaces to explore. However, it can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable to express your Jewishness in those spaces.”
Greenfeld added that being around people with similar backgrounds allowed for empowering conversations on the sides of the dance floor, something he said he’d never experienced at other parties.
In addition to nightlife, Meyers has plans to grow Flaminggg into a more robust programming venture. Funded solely through donations and ticket sales, Meyers hopes to keep it that way so as to remain independent from any political or religious agendas. Currently in the process of establishing Flaminggg as its own LLC, Meyers envisions branching out into Shabbat dinners and queer Jewish study groups.
Ultimately, Meyers hopes that through Flaminggg’s events, attendees will feel more ownership over their Jewish identities. “All the Jewish programming I do is for building a deeper and deeper possibility of people coming into a space and going: ‘I’ve never felt so affirmed in being both queer and Jewish,’” he said. “Creating a platform where we can celebrate all of that is really special.”
Flamingggtaschen: A Queer Purim Party is on Saturday, March 4 at 3 Dollar Bill (270 Meserole St.) Get tickets here.
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The post This Purim, a space for queer Jews to celebrate their identities — and dance the night away appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How Dealing with Difficult Challenges Leads to Spiritual Growth and Leadership
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
They say that “the devil is in the details,” and nowhere has that been more evident than in the corruption scandal currently shaking Ukraine — even as the deadly war with Russia continues to rage.
Over the past couple of weeks, Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators have been drip-feeding the world with information: wiretaps, redacted court testimony, and sordid specifics of a large bribery saga. The cast of villains includes prominent businessmen and contractors pressured for hefty “commissions,” high-ranking ministers abruptly resigning, and one of President Zelensky’s former business partners fleeing the country just hours before the police raided his home.
The entire scheme exploited a wartime loophole — a rule under martial law preventing contractors from collecting debts in court from companies providing essential services. Energoatom fits that definition perfectly, as it supplies more than half of Ukraine’s electricity.
But more fascinating than the scandal itself is the sheer level of detail — the way this scheme evolved from small to big to overwhelming, unfolding slowly, piece by piece, person by person, until you finally step back and see the broad contours of the entire sprawling disaster.
And oddly enough, all of this brings me straight into the heart of Parshat Vayeitzei, which was my late father’s bar mitzvah parsha. He would always say — with an unmistakable twinkle in his eye — that Vayeitzei was “the most important parsha in the Torah.” We’d nod and smile, convinced he was just having a laugh.
I mean, yes — Vayeitzei certainly has its blockbuster moments: Jacob’s ladder stretching toward heaven, the extraordinary promises God makes to him, his first encounter with Rachel at the well — one of the great love stories in Jewish history — followed by his marriages and the birth of 11 children who would become the founders of the tribes that became the Jewish people. All of these events are unquestionably consequential, to say the least.
But then you hit the middle of the parsha — the part everyone secretly hopes the baal koreh will speed through. It’s long, it’s intricate, and it’s bewilderingly detailed: the astonishing saga of Jacob’s business dealings with Lavan.
Wage agreements — and disagreements. Livestock negotiations. Contract revisions. Endless sheep rearing. Sheep with spots, sheep without spots, sheep with speckles, stripes, dark patches — every possible permutation of sheep coloration you can imagine. It’s the Torah’s version of a regulatory audit: too many technical notes, too many procedural details, and far too much information.
Most of us, understandably, wonder what all this sheep drama is doing in a sacred text. Why did the Torah — normally so concise — zoom in on this business relationship from hell? Why give us this level of detail? And whatever the answer might be, surely this story doesn’t belong in “the most important parsha in the Torah.”
But my father always insisted that Vayeitzei’s business section wasn’t a pointless, transitional interruption in the narrative — it was the narrative. And perhaps, as the revelations from Kyiv remind us, the line between spiritual greatness and moral disaster is drawn not in grand theological enterprises like ladders reaching heavenward or celestial dream sequences, but in the slow, grinding, unglamorous world of day-to-day commerce: negotiations, promises, deals, and the quiet ethical temptations that shadow every decision we make.
If you think about it, this strange middle section of Vayeitzei is the Torah’s earliest and most elaborate case study in business ethics — or, more accurately, business un-ethics. Lavan is the Biblical version of a man who smiles broadly to your face while his hand is quietly stealing your wallet.
He is charming, generous-sounding, and utterly unscrupulous. He cheats at negotiations. He alters contracts retroactively. He weaponizes hospitality. He manipulates family loyalty. If there were a Biblical Consumer Protection Bureau, Lavan would be its full-time subject of interest.
And Jacob — the bookish, scholarly son of Isaac — finds himself thrown into a years-long masterclass with one of the greatest Machiavellian businessmen of the ancient Near East. The holy patriarch of the Jewish nation, the spiritual heir to Abraham and Isaac, sits across the table from a crook arguing over sheep markings.
But that’s precisely the point. Spirituality is easy when you live a monastic life of solitude and separation. Show me how spiritual you are when you need to negotiate with a scoundrel — that’s when your character is truly revealed.
Judaism doesn’t believe in the mystique of the cloister. Our greatest spiritual heroes aren’t monks; they’re shepherds, merchants, craftsmen, farmers — even warriors and kings. Jacob’s true greatness emerges in the trenches of real life, in the dense and morally dangerous world where money, power, opportunity, resentment, and desperation mingle with our aspirations to become the people God wants us to be.
What Vayeitzei shows, in deliberately excruciating detail, is that Jacob absolutely refuses to become Lavan. Yes, he negotiates, he strategizes, he outsmarts. But he does not become Lavan. He maintains his integrity.
And here’s the deeper insight — the one my father, with his mischievous grin, seemed instinctively to understand: the Jewish mission from the very outset was never to escape the world; it was to elevate it — from the inside out.
If Jacob had spent 20 years in a desert cave meditating on the divine, he might have produced beautiful insights — but there would have been no tribes, no family, no nation, and no legacy. Instead, Jacob becomes the spiritual father of Israel the nation even as he ran a household, raised children, and navigated a business partnership with a morally bankrupt relative.
And that is precisely why the Torah dwells on the sheep. Because the sheep are not a distraction — they are the arena. They are the battlefield where Jacob’s greatness is forged. They are the proof that holiness is not found in what we avoid, but in how we behave when we can’t avoid what we would much prefer to have nothing to do with.
And as it turns out, in the final analysis Jacob was not transformed by his dream of angels — he was transformed by his years in business with Lavan. What we learn from Jacob and the sheep is that building a family, maintaining integrity in business, and dealing with difficult people are not obstacles to spiritual growth; they are spiritual growth.
Which only goes to prove that my father’s twinkling assertion wasn’t a joke at all. He understood something the rest of us tend to overlook. Maybe Vayeitzei really is the most important parsha in the Torah — not despite the details, but because of them.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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The Dangerous Legacy of the 1840 ‘Damascus Affair’ Blood Libel (PART TWO)
Smoke rises from a building after strikes at Syria’s defense ministry in Damascus, Syria, July 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Part One of this article appeared here.
Worldwide Reaction and Coordinated Jewish Response
Western Jews in Europe and America were incensed at what was happening in Damascus. Europeans and American Jews lobbied their governments to intercede on behalf of the Jews in Damascus. In what was then an entirely novel approach, 15,000 Jews in six American cities gathered and protested on behalf of their fellow Jews in Syria.
In response to the advocacy, government leaders condemned the libel and attempted to intervene on behalf of the accused Jews. Among them were Queen Victoria, Lord Henry Palmerston, US Secretary of State John Forsyth, and, as previously mentioned, Klemens von Metternich of Austria.
Among the Jews who were advocating on behalf of the Damascus Jews, Sir Moses Montefiore stood out.
He, along with French lawyer and future French Justice Minister Adolphe Cremieux, Louis Loewe, and Solomon Munk, traveled as a delegation to Egypt to appeal to Muhammad Ali. They requested that the investigation be transferred to Egyptian or European judges to consider the case. Their request was denied, but as a result, Muhammad Ali decided instead to have the Jews released without acquitting them. The liberation order was issued on August 28, 1840. The prisoners who had survived the investigation were freed.
Seeing that the charges would not be dropped and the libel would continue, Montefiore and Cremieux chose to turn to Sultan Abdul Mejid of the Ottoman Empire, since he was the actual leader over the region, albeit largely powerless. They asked the Sultan to issue a decree proclaiming blood libels as false and prohibiting prosecuting Jews based on such accusations.
The Sultan acquiesced and issued his ruling on November 6, 1840. In a noteworthy act, he condemned the blood libel, stating clearly that it was utterly false and that “Muslim theologians had examined Jewish religious books and found that the Jews are strongly prohibited not only from using human blood but even from consuming that of animals. It therefore follows that the charges made against them, and their religion, are nothing but pure calumny.”
Nevertheless, for years to come, and on antisemitic websites until today, the Catholics of Damascus would continue to tell the story of the friar murdered by Jews for his blood, and that the Jews had only been let free due to the influence of powerful Jews from other countries.
What was France Thinking?
In the aftermath of the Damascus Affair, numerous questions arose. How could France, a country that gave civil equality to the Jews in 1791 and gave its Jewish population the most legal rights, openly support the patently false blood libel accusation and even allow torture to be used to extort confessions?
Most historians conclude that the answer was national self-interest. France’s leaders saw it as beneficial to maintain their foothold in Syria, and felt that supporting the accusers against the Jews would work for them. By the same token, countries hostile to France seized the opportunity to denounce France for its actions, as they sought to increase their control in the Middle East and diminish French influence there. So, Metternich, not known to be a friend of the Jews, denounced the blood libel charges, as did the leaders of Great Britain.
The Damascus Blood Libel, which might otherwise have passed unnoticed in Europe, garnered international attention because of the rivalry of Europe’s great powers in the Middle East.
The Jewish Reaction
The Damascus Affair has been described as a turning point in modern Jewish history, particularly for French Jews, who were among the most vocal supporters that traditional Jewish nationalism was a thing of the past. They were patriotic citizens for whom religion was a private matter, if it was relevant at all.
Yet, when they were exposed to the antisemitism that France displayed in the Damascus Affair, French Jews were completely shaken up. In fact, all of world Jewry was shocked that the blood libel accusation — a throwback to the antisemitism of the Dark Ages — was initially accepted as fact by almost the entire press in Europe. How could it be that educated citizens and modern leaders could believe and support this baseless and ridiculous accusation? No reassuring answer was forthcoming.
In an act that would reverberate for the next two centuries, in 1846, a two-volume book was published in Paris, written by Achille Laurent (a pseudonym), Relation historique des affaires de Syrie depuis 1840 jusqu’en 1842. It claimed to document the complete protocols of the investigation in Damascus, yet completely omitted any mention of the extensive use of torture and only focused on the Jews as murderers, and that the blood libel was a proven fact.
These protocols were published in German, Italian, Arabic, and Russian in the years and decades to come. This book allowed antisemites to “prove” that the murder accusation had been proven and documented, but that the Jews were released despite their guilt.
In fact, Russian coverage of the Damascus Affair in the media is seen as one of the causes that led to the pogroms of the 1890s. Unfortunately, these protocols continue to be published and publicized, particularly in the Arab-language media.
One of the end results of the Damascus Affair was its awakening of Jewish awareness for the need to cooperate to address Jewish needs and respond to charges and attacks towards Jews around the world. In the following decades, for the first time in modern history, multiple such organizations would form to address these concerns.
One Nation
The subsequent blood libel that made international news was that of Menachem Mendel Beilis in Russia in 1911. The lawyer who headed the defense team, the legendary Oscar Gruzenberg, was sure that the prosecution’s attack would take quotes out of context from the Talmud and use them to accuse the Jews. He had Rabbi Mazeh, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, head a rabbinic advisory team for the defense and prepare answers to the inevitable questions. As Gruzenberg had predicted, at the trial the prosecution quoted the Talmudic statement in Tractate Yevamos 61a, “You (the Jewish people) are called “Adam” (Man), and the other nations are not called “Adam” (Man).”
The prosecutors demanded, “How could the Jews claim only they are called man, and the other nations are not called man?! It must mean that they view non-Jews as subhuman!”
The defense had an answer prepared, provided by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, who was already renowned as a brilliant and eloquent leader of Polish Jewry. He explained that the quote reflects an essential characteristic of the Jews and was not intended an insult to the other nations.
Rabbi Shapiro explained that the Talmud (Shavous 39) teaches that “Kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh,” meaning all Jews are responsible for one another. He elaborated that in the court, the fate of a single Jew — Mendel Beilis — was being decided, yet the judgment touched Jewish people all over the world.
Rabbi Shapiro directed the defense team to ask the judge, “If an Italian citizen was arrested in Poland or a Frenchman in Germany, would all of Italy or all of France be praying on his behalf and advocating for his acquittal? Would Italians or Frenchmen all over the world be constantly worried about him and awaiting news of his release? Of course not. Yet, when one Jew in Russia is falsely accused of murder, the entire Jewish nation stands with him, because we are truly one. The Talmud says Jews are called “Adam,” because “Adam” shows the unity of the Jewish nation. We are one, a single unit, just as Adam was one man. The word “Adam” in Hebrew has no plural, and that is why it represents the Jewish people, who are one, and this pronoun is not used to identify other nations, as the Talmud stated.”
This answer was understood, even by the accusers. This message continues to serve as a beacon of light for the connection Jews share with one another. In good times and bad, the Jewish People are one.
Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA from 2007 – 2020. He is a popular speaker and has written for numerous publications. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org. A version of this article was first published at: https://aish.com/the-damascus-affair/
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Seven IDF Soldiers Wounded in Counterterrorism Operation in Syria
A damaged site, following an Israeli raid on Friday, according to Syrian state media, in Beit Jinn, Syria, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Ahmed al-Najjar
i24 News — Seven Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were wounded during exchange of fire with Syrian jihadists as arrests were conducted of wanted suspects; two Syrian terrorists were killed.
The incident took place in the village of Beit Jinn in Southern Syria — 8 km from the Israeli border and Mount Hermon, an area where the IDF operates frequently (north of the Druze village of Hader).
The event began around 2 am during an operation to apprehend two wanted members of the terrorist organization Jamaa al-Islamiya at their home. A reserve paratrooper force from the 55th Brigade entered the structure, apprehended the terrorists, and began exiting the building in order to bring them in for questioning.
As the force left the building, it came under short-range fire, wounding seven soldiers — three seriously and four moderately to lightly. The soldiers returned fire and eliminated two additional fighters in the area. The Air Force was also dispatched, but could not engage due to the close proximity between the force and the militants.
Despite the exchange of fire, the operation was successful. The two wanted suspects from Jamaa al-Islamiya (whom intelligence had been monitoring for a long time prior to the operation) were transferred to security interrogation in Israel.
This is not the first time the IDF has carried out an arrest operation in the village: on June 12, soldiers from the Alexandroni Brigade captured a Hamas terrorist cell of six operatives who had planned to attack IDF forces in Syria and had based themselves in Beit Jinn. Numerous weapons were found with them.