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Missouri Jewish leaders advocate for trans rights at state legislature
(JTA) — “Hi, my name is Dan. I’m 11 years old and I like doing magic and circus skills, especially unicycling. I’m here today to testify against House Bill 170, 183, and 337,” a young voice said into the microphone.
“I really like to play sports with my friends, although honestly I’m not very good at it,” he added. “I’d really like the chance to play.”
Dan — a transgender boy whose parents asked that his last name not be used — was the youngest person to testify at the Missouri State House last week in opposition to eight bills heard in the chamber that would restrict trans children from participating in sports that align with their gender identity and limit their access to specialized medical care.
He was also part of a delegation of Missouri’s Jewish community members, alongside a few Christian clergy, that has been consistently appearing at the state Capitol to advocate for trans rights in response to a slew of bills that activists say violate their religious freedoms and cause significant harm to the LGBTQ community.
Daniel Bogard, the rabbi at Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis and the parent of a trans child, was at the State House Jan. 24 and again on Feb. 1 to support those testifying against the bills and to lobby lawmakers against them. He is a frequent visitor to Jefferson City as a trans rights activist, saying the possibility of restrictions on medical care are what scare him the most. One piece of legislation would bar physicians and health care professionals from providing gender affirmation procedures to anyone under 18. It would also deny access to medication like puberty blockers, which are administered to delay the onset of puberty.
“What we want to do is we want to protect kids from unnecessary and harmful surgeries and medications,” said Brad Hudson, a Republican representative and one of the sponsors of the bill. “I say harmful because giving kids puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even transgender surgery violates the first duty of medicine, do no harm.” (The Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and other providers say they are generally considered safe to use.)
Hudson also identified himself in his testimony that he is a Christian pastor, and said that his worldview is one in which human beings are created “in the image and likeness of their Creator.”
“Those are the bills that criminalize treating your child as every medical and psychological mainstream organization recommends,” Bogard countered. “And that means parents are left with a choice of not giving these kids the sorts of treatment and care that are best practice according to everything that we know, or fleeing the state, or staying and risking some sort of criminal charge. The one that terrifies me is the idea of DSS [Department of Social Services] agents showing up to my door to take my kid away.”
Bogard, who has been going to the state Capitol for five years now, says the experience of being back at the State Legislature has been simultaneously “awful and affirming.”
With only 25 hours of advance notice, the group going to testify in Jefferson City had to leave St. Louis at 5:30 am in order to make it on time. (Courtesy of Daniel Bogard)
“What’s remarkable is you go in and two-thirds of the people who are sponsoring these bills or testifying in favor of these bills are using overtly Christian theological language when they’re talking about the why,” he explained. “And then you look around and the people who are showing up to protect trans kids are Jews.”
“I’m just so proud of our Jewish community, the way we have shown up around this issue here in Missouri,” Bogard said, remarking on the decades-long history of Jewish-led LGBTQ advocacy in the state. (The founder of the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group PROMO, which is not itself a Jewish group, was founded by Rabbi Susan Talve, one of the founding members of Bogard’s synagogue. Shira Berkowitz, a Jewish summer camp friend of Bogard’s, is the senior director of public policy and advocacy at the organization, and last year, Bogard and Berkowitz launched a summer camp for trans kids.)
The new principal of Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School, Raquel Scharf-Anderson, made the two-hour drive early on Jan. 24 to testify on behalf of her students.
“I make all of my decisions in the best interest of children,” Scharf-Anderson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Anything that would impact the students in my school, I want them to see me standing with them.”
The sports bills in particular, she said, would impact trans students at private schools, like Mirowitz.
Over the course of the Jan. 24 hearing, Rachel Aguirre, a special education teacher who ran unsuccessfully for State Senate in the Republican primary in 2022, argued that the government was “founded upon the word of God,” and therefore athletes should only play on teams whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Nancy Delcour, another witness testifying in favor of the bill, also cited the biblical principle that humankind was created in God’s image, and an attempt to change that is the work of Satan.
Before the nine-hour long hearing was over, another interpretation of the principle of “the image of God” was explored on the hearing room floor.
“As a Jew, this is something that speaks to me quite a bit. We call it ‘b’tzelem Elokim’ — ‘created in the image of God,’ literally,” said Russel Neiss, a Jewish educator and technologist and the parent of a trans child. “But the way we understand this is that God bestows a special honor onto humans that requires that we need to be treated with dignity and we need to treat others with dignity.”
Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, a rabbi, and the wife of Russel Neiss, also testified against the bills and in support of their child.
“Sitting here for the past two hours has been one of the most painful things that I’ve ever had to do as a mother and we’ve been doing this for four years,” she said. Picker-Neiss stayed home from the Jan. 31 Senate hearing for the first time in four years — but was back at the Capitol fighting for her child’s rights by the next day.
Next week, as another bill limiting what can be said about trans identity in schools makes its way through the Missouri chambers, Scharf-Anderson says school leadership will return to the state Capitol.
“We know that children imitate what we do, and we want to make sure that we’re being good role models for them,” she said. “And we will continue to stand by the children that we need to support who are part of our school and in our broader community.”
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The post Missouri Jewish leaders advocate for trans rights at state legislature appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rabbi who coached Adam Brody for ‘Nobody Wants This’ calls him ‘ignorant Jew’ over Gaza ‘genocide’ comments
(JTA) — The rabbi who coached Adam Brody for Netflix’s “Nobody Wants This” has bashed him for saying that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Steve Leder, the former senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, served as a consultant on depictions of Judaism for Season 1 of “Nobody Wants This,” a rom-com in which Brody plays a rabbi who falls for an agnostic non-Jewish podcaster.
Leder denounced Brody on Wednesday over recent comments in which the Jewish actor for the first time publicly expressed his views on Israel’s actions in Gaza. Brody told GQ, “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine.”
Leder said in an Instagram video that Brody’s statements were “truly shocking,” “flippant” and “disgusting,” asserting his own view that “there is no genocide in Gaza.”
“You, by your own admission, are a relatively ignorant Jew, and your ignorance really showed the other day,” said Leder. “If you’re going to use a word like genocide, you ought to know what it means.”
Leder appeared to be referring to Brody’s previous descriptions of his limited Jewish education. Brody has said he is an atheist who “barely got bar mitzvahed and retained nothing from it,” adding that he prepared for the role of rabbi Noah Roklov in “Nobody Wants This” by attending a Shabbat service and working through books, podcasts and documentaries about Judaism.
Brody played high-profile Jewish characters including Seth Cohen in “The O.C.” and Seth Morris in “Fleishman Is in Trouble” before “Nobody Wants This,” which returns for a third season on Oct. 22.
The show itself has conspicuously avoided the subject of Israel. “Nobody Wants This” creator Erin Foster — who converted to Judaism in Leder’s synagogue — told The Free Press last year that she made a deliberate choice not to deal with the issue.
“We never say Israel or Palestine in the show, and that’s intentional because I think it would be a distraction and that this is just not the show to tell that story,” said Foster.
Brody told GQ that the Gaza war, alongside other national and global crises in recent years, revealed that he and his Hollywood peers were not as “like-minded” as he previously believed.
“Between COVID, a second Trump term, Israel-Gaza, it’s really brought out some different beliefs that I was ignorant to, and then disheartened by,” he said.
Israel’s actions in Gaza have divided the entertainment industry — and Jewish stars. While celebrities such as Jerry Seinfeld, Gal Gadot and Amy Schumer have voiced support for Israel since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, other Jewish actors have said that Israel subsequently committed genocide, including Hannah Einbinder and Wallace Shawn.
The genocide accusation is heavily disputed. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry, along with international and Israeli human rights groups, has concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza fit that description. However, the International Court of Justice has not yet issued a final judgment on allegations of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. Israel rejects the accusation.
The post Rabbi who coached Adam Brody for ‘Nobody Wants This’ calls him ‘ignorant Jew’ over Gaza ‘genocide’ comments appeared first on The Forward.
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How Netflix’s ‘East of Eden’ handled its ‘Timshel’ problem for Hebrew speakers
The crux of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, now a splashy Netflix miniseries, is a Hebrew word that doesn’t exist.
At one point in Steinbeck’s 600-page tome, as rife with biblical allegory as the Salinas Valley is with natural beauty, the character Lee offers a midrash on Genesis 4, and the moment God rejects Cain’s offering.
Speaking with Samuel Hamilton, the neighbor of the Trask family at the center of the generational drama, Lee said he was bothered by a passage where God says, in the King James Bible, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”
Lee says he compared translations and finally returned to the source: Hebrew, by way of some learned Chinese elders who consulted a rabbi.
In the Hebrew, they found the word “timshel,” which they translate as “thou mayest. Thou mayest rule over sin.” (The word, the last one of Steinbeck’s book, is the title of the final episode of the Netflix series.)
“The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance,” Lee tells Samuel, scholar to scholar. “The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’ — it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’”
This interpretation, in a book about how sin may be transmitted from one set of Cain and Abel-like brothers to the next, is the core of Steinbeck’s philosophy. So central is it that he carved the word onto a wooden box containing the manuscript.
But as I am hardly the first to note, “timshel” is a corruption of “timshol,” תמשל, and it doesn’t mean “thou mayest.” It means something like “you will rule” — future tense, second person, a more complete thought.
That said, the sages did debate whether the word was truly determinative or implied a sense of choice. (Ramban and Rashi are among the ones to suggest free will factored into the equation.)
While quoting the whole phrase in English, Steinbeck evidently thought the word “timshol” only indicated how one might rule, and did not encompass the piece about the ruling. As our language columnist Aviya Kushner has written, Steinbeck’s explanation “reveals an ignorance of the basic fact that Hebrew is more concise than English.”
Steinbeck was writing for an English-speaking audience. Zoe Kazan released her miniseries on Netflix and to a global audience that includes around 9 to 10 million Hebrew speakers. How did they adapt the passage for the Hebrew subtitles?
In the show, the scene plays out much the same way. Lee (Hon Lee) and Samuel (Ciarán Hinds) are at the kitchen table of the Trask homestead in the valley.
The King James has God tell Cain “thou shalt” rule over sin. It sounds, as Lee says, like “a promise.” The American Standard Bible translates it as “do thou.” “More of an order” from the Almighty, says Samuel.
Lee said Jewish scholars in San Francisco found the original in “timshel,” which, as in the book, is translated as “thou mayest.”
In the Hebrew subtitles, the word is correctly rendered as timshol, תמשול. Netflix translated his reading as “thou mayest” as, literally, “a choice is in your hand,” which, while not actually what the word means in Hebrew, suggests it’s something a bit more layered than “thou mayest.”
(Netflix did not respond to a request for comment about how the Hebrew translations were decided on.)
Perhaps the spirit of it — if not the letter — is what matters. And indeed, the rejection of evil as an inborn element of human nature has more in common with Jewish tradition than the Episcopalian concept of original sin and agency linked to God that Steinbeck grew up with.
Lee reasons that “timshel,” a Steinbeckian invention, may be the most important word there is.
“It offers a choice,” he says. “Our future isn’t determined by God or by our past. Even Cain in his weakness and his filth at the murder of his brother can still choose his course. Because timshel. Thou mayest.”
It’s a worthwhile message that of course resonates. But, of course, thou mayest also consult Hebrew speakers.
Mira Fox contributed research and translation.
The post How Netflix’s ‘East of Eden’ handled its ‘Timshel’ problem for Hebrew speakers appeared first on The Forward.
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Even Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied
האָסטו אַמאָל געטראַכט: „ווען איך וואָלט נאָר געהאַט דאָס אָדער יענץ, אָדער ווען מײַן מצבֿ וואָלט נאָר געווען אַנדערש, וואָלט איך געווען גליקלעך…“?
עס איז זייער אַנטמוטיקנדיק צו גלייבן אַז עס פֿעלט אונדז דאָס וואָס מיר דאַרפֿן כּדי צו דערגרייכן אונדזערע צילן און צו זײַן גליקלעך. און נאָך מער: ווען מען קומט צו אַזאַ מסקנה, פֿילט מען זיך ווי אַ קרבן פֿון די אומשטענדן, אוממעכטיק צו בײַטן די מציאות צום גוטן.
אָבער איז עס טאַקע אַזוי?
אין טיפֿן איז דאָס אַ פֿאַלשער חשבון. פֿרייד איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם וואָס מיר האָבן אָדער האָבן ניט, נאָר פֿון דעם ווי מיר קוקן אויף וואָס מיר האָבן און אויף וואָס עס פֿעלט אונדז.
אין דער וואָכעדיקער סדרה, בראשית, לייענען מיר וועגן בריאת־העולם און איר שפּיץ — די באַשאַפֿונג פֿון אָדם און חוה.
וואָס קען זײַן אַ בעסערער בײַשפּיל, אַז גליק איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון אויסערלעכע אומשטענדן, ווי אָדם און חוה אין גן־עדן?
האָט זיי עפּעס געפֿעלט? ניין.
און דאָך האָבן זיי אַליין באַוויזן צו פֿאַרפּלאָנטערן דעם מצבֿ.
עס איז געווען בלויז איין בוים, פֿון וועמענס פֿרוכטן ג־ט האָט זיי פֿאַרווערט צו עסן, און זיי האָבן זיך ניט געקענט אײַנהאַלטן פֿון עסן דווקא פֿון יענעם בוים!
און נאָך מער: לויט דעם תּנא רבי מאיר איז דער בוים געווען אַ ווײַנשטאָק. זיי האָבן זיך געדאַרפֿט אָפּהאַלטן פֿון זײַנע פֿרוכטן בלויז עטלעכע שעה, ביז שבת וואָלט זיך אָנגעהויבן; דאַן וואָלטן זיי געקענט מאַכן קידוש אויפֿן ווײַן און אַזוי אײַנפֿירן אַן אייביקן שבת.
פֿאַר וואָס האָבן זיי ניט געקענט זיך אײַנהאַלטן?
עס איז אַ טייל פֿון אונדזער נאַטור צו וועלן דווקא דאָס וואָס מיר קענען ניט האָבן, און ניט אָפּצושאַצן ווי געהעריג דאָס וואָס מיר האָבן יאָ.
עס קלינגט כּמעט אומגלייבלעך — כאָטש דאָס געשעט צו אָפֿט — אָבער ווען ג־ט קומט צו אָדם און פֿאָדערט בײַ אים אַן ענטפֿער פֿאַר וואָס ער האָט געגעסן פֿון בוים, באַשולדיקט ער „די פֿרוי וואָס דו האָסט מיר געגעבן צו זײַן מיט מיר“, ווײַל זי האָט אים געגעבן צו עסן פֿון בוים.
וואָס פֿאַר אַן אומדאַנקבאַרקייט!
ג־ט האָט אים געגעבן אַ פֿרוי, ווײַל ער האָט געזען ווי שטאַרק אָדם לײַדט פֿון זײַן איינזאַמקייט. און אַנשטאָט אָפּצושאַצן דעם אוצר וואָס ער האָט באַקומען, קריטיקירט ער זי און באַשולדיקט זי.
אין אַ בריוו צו איינעם וואָס פֿלעגט זיך אָפֿט באַקלאָגן וועגן זײַן לעבן, שרײַבט דער ליובאַוויטשער רבי — זכותו יגן עלינו:
„אין דער וועלט אין וועלכער מיר לעבן, געפֿינט זיך אין אַלע זאַכן אַ געמיש פֿון גוטס און שלעכטס. דער מענטש דאַרף אויסקלײַבן אויף וועלכן פֿון די צוויי צדדים ער וויל לייגן דעם טראָפּ, אויף וועלכן ער וויל טראַכטן, און וועלכן ער וויל נאָכגיין…
„ווי באַלערנדיק איז דאָס וואָס אונדזערע חכמים זאָגן וועגן דעם וואָס אָדם איז געווען אַן אומדאַנקבאַרער: נאָך איידער ער איז פֿאַרטריבן געוואָרן פֿון גן־עדן — ווען ער האָט זיך נאָך געפֿונען אין אַ ממשותדיקן גן־עדן — האָט ער זיך שוין באַקלאָגט וועגן זײַן מצבֿ.
„פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט זענען געווען ייִדן, מענער און פֿרויען, וואָס האָבן געדאַנקט און געבענטשט דעם באַשעפֿער, און געזאָגט די ברכות השחר יעדן אינדערפֿרי, בשעת זיי האָבן געלעבט אונטער די שרעקלעכסטע באַדינגונגען אין די דײַטשישע קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן.
„אין דער ווירקלעכקייט וועט דער מצבֿ פֿון יעדן מענטש זיך געפֿינען ערגעץ צווישן די צוויי עקסטרעמען.
„מײַן כּוונה איז ניט אײַך צו מוסרן, נאָר אונטערצושטרײַכן אַ מציאות: וואָס פֿאַר אַ לעבן מיר לעבן — אַ לעבן פֿול מיט צופֿרידנקייט און באַדײַט, אָדער פֿאַרקערט — איז אין אַ גרויסער מאָס אָפּהענגיק פֿון אונדזער ווילנסקראַפֿט, וואָס באַשטימט צי מיר וועלן לייגן דעם טראָפּ אויף דעם פּאָזיטיוון אָדער אויף דעם נעגאַטיוון.“
מיר זײַנען מסוגל זיך צו באַקלאָגן אויף די באַדינגונגען אין גן־עדן און צו פֿילן הכּרת־הטובֿ, דאַנקשאַפֿט, אַפֿילו אין די אוממענטשלעכסטע באַדינגונגען פֿון אַ קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגער.
איינער פֿון די פּערזענלעכע געהילפֿן בײַם רבין, הרבֿ בערל ע״ה יוניק, האָט דערציילט, אַז דער רבי האָט אים אַמאָל פּריוואַט געזאָגט:
„איך האָב געאַרבעט אויף זיך צו זען שטענדיק די זאַכן אין אַ פּאָזיטיוון ליכט; ווען ניט, וואָלט איך ניט געקענט איבערלעבן.“
ווען מען ווייסט וויפֿל פּערזענלעכע ליידן פֿון פֿאַרשידענע מינים דער רבי האָט אַליין דורכגעמאַכט, אין צוגאָב צו דעם ווייטיק פֿון די המונים מענטשן וואָס האָבן מיט אים געטיילט זייערע פּערזענלעכע צרות, קען מען פֿאַרשטיין, אַז אַזאַ בליק אויפֿן לעבן איז גאָר ניט קיין קליינע דערגרייכונג.
דערפֿאַר איז די „ווערקצײַג“ פֿון דער וואָך צו טראַכטן וועגן די פֿאָלגנדיקע פֿראַגעס:
זענען די אומשטענדן פֿון דײַן לעבן גוט אָדער שלעכט אומאָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי — אָדער ווערן זיי פֿאַר דיר גוט אָדער שלעכט דווקא צוליב דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי?
ס׳איז דאָ אַ וואָרט וואָס מען האָט געהערט אין נאָמען פֿון דעם דריטן חב״ד רבי, דעם צמח צדק זצ״ל: „אַזוי ווי מען שטעלט זיך אַוועק שבת בראשית, אַזוי גייט אַוועק אויף דעם גאַנצן יאָר“. דריק איך אויס די האָפֿענונג אַז מיר זאָלן אין דעם אַלע מצליח זײַן און האָבן אַ גוט געבענטשט יאָר.
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