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Friday December 17^th  at 7 PM

Rabbi Denise Eger, the founder of Kol Ami, ”All My People,” a Los Angeles synagogue that has been a leader in North America’s Jewish and LBGTQ+ communities since 1992, will speak during sabbath services on Friday evening at the Woodstock Area Jewish Community/Shir Shalom.  

Services will be in person at Shir Shalom (masks are required) and broadcast over Zoom at 7:00 pm, led by Rabbi Ilene Haigh and hosted by Richard Windish and Pamela Goldman. Rabbi Eger will appear via Zoom.

Windish, who chairs Shir Shalom’s Tikkun Olam Committee, the synagogue’s organization committed to “repairing the world,” said, “One of the goals of the Tikkun Olam efforts we launched during Chanukah is to shine a light on LGBTQ+ and gender diversity issues. We want to honor those in our extended community who are non-binary or LGBTQ and to honor our speaker for her magnificent work.”

Rabbi Eger, Rabbi Haigh said, “is a champion for LBGTQ rights in the Jewish community.  Her new book, Where Pride Dwells, is an exquisite offering of prayers and understanding about what it means to live and worship and be whole in an untraditional queer modality.” 

In her book, Mishkan Ga'avah: Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of LGBTQ Jewish Life and Ritual, Rabbi Eger writes, “I have always believed that in order for LGBTQ Jews to connect with our God, we need to stop shaming LGBTQ Jews. God made us who we are, and we ought to fully acknowledge and celebrate every aspect of our lives. If we are committed to the theological ideal that all people are created b’tzem Elohim, ‘in the image of God,’ then we have to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, non-binary, and transgender people. God made us all. Just as we are.”

Rabbi Haigh said she agrees with Rabbi Eger that “the act of coming out is an act of holiness. Like the revelation at Sinai, our call is God-given and never-ending, and we give the same response: Na’aseh v’nishma (“We will do and we will listen,” Exodus 24:7).

Shir Shalom welcomes those in the LGBTQ and non-binary communities to services on Friday and to the congregation’s educational, spiritual, and social activities and celebrations.

“The pain that individuals experience, especially our young people, is profound,” Rabbi Haigh said. “We want all to know that we hear and see them.  We are all made in God’s image, exactly as we are.”

Join us at 7PM
December 17, 2021 
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/7259482096
password: 856328 Meeting ID: 725 948 2096