Huntington Woods, USA - When Daniel Hoffman and his spouse, Ariel, moved from New York to Huntington Woods last summer, they went hunting for a traditional Jewish synagogue: one that keeps kosher, is dedicated to regular Torah study and is close enough to walk to on Shabbat.
This synagogue also had to allow the gay couple, who were married in Massachusetts in June, to check the "family" box on their membership application. "They didn't have to call us married or a couple or whatever, but ... it was important for us to join as a household unit," said Hoffman, 31.
Supporters within the Jewish community are trying to push this once-hushed topic into the open, hoping to foster a welcoming environment for gay youth, if not challenge traditional notions.
"We can't just talk about this in whispers in the shadows. We have to understand this aspect of human variation," said P.J. Cherrin, who helped found the Jewish Gay Network of Michigan in 2004.
Because "in the meantime, they don't know people are committing suicide. They don't know (people) are going into forced marriages to gain acceptance into a community."
Over the next year, the Network will venture into Reform and Conservative synagogues to teach Jewish educators how to combat homophobia and bullying in their classrooms. And events this weekend will help lay the groundwork for that effort.
Rabbi Steven Greenberg, senior fellow at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York and the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, has been invited to host discussions with educators, teenagers and the public throughout Metro Detroit.
Last summer, an Orthodox synagogue in Oak Park welcomed Daniel and Ariel Hoffman, but informed them they could only join as "individuals."
And no rabbi within the order, the couple was told, would be willing to perform a Jewish conversion of their eventual adopted child.
"I know where they're coming from, but I'm too secure in the relationship that I have," Daniel Hoffman said. "I can't put up with being told that it's less than or not equal to."
As is often the case in traditional religious life, homosexuality is a thorny issue in more observant Jewish circles.
Gay unions unrecognized
A strict interpretation of Jewish law, halachah, deems homosexual acts an abomination. Today, that means Orthodox, and many Conservative, synagogues don't recognize same-sex unions, and more traditional seminaries bar the ordination of gay rabbis.
"We consider them to be human beings and Jews of good standing," said Orthodox Rabbi Alon Tolwin of Aish HaTorah, a Jewish learning center in Southfield.
But "it's a prohibition like any other prohibition and it's dangerous because as a banner issue it attacks the essence of the morality we're trying to maintain."
The Network's educational efforts are enabled by a $45,000 grant from Keshet, a Boston-based nonprofit that promotes the inclusion of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgendered in Jewish life.
Through film screenings and training for Jewish educators, the Network hopes to foster acceptance based on Jewish values of respect ("Kavod") and community ("K'lal Yisrael").
Several of the more liberal synagogues in the area have scheduled upcoming screenings of "Hineini ('Here I Am'): Coming Out in a Jewish High School," a documentary film about a ninth grader's fight to establish a gay-straight alliance at her academy in a Boston suburb.
Inclusiveness in education
"It's an important part of a Jewish Reform education to learn values of inclusiveness ... including sexual orientation," said Geoffrey Berdy, director of education and youth services at Temple Emanu-el, a Reform synagogue in Oak Park.
While religious attitudes in the Reform movement have shifted toward greater acceptance in recent decades, Orthodox Judaism has remained relatively rigid.
"God is infinite and God doesn't change his mind," said Rabbi Tolwin. "And He said a male shouldn't sleep with another male."
Despite this view, the Network has found allies within the Orthodox community, particularly with rabbis who break with mainstream opinion. (Several were contacted but declined to comment for the story.)
Eventually, the Network hopes it can broach its educators about hosting its programs.
"That's certainly the goal," said Kim Phillips-Knope, director of the Network. "We don't want to come in and be perceived as wanting ... to create conflict in the relationship. At this point, the conversation is just starting."
In the meantime, the Hoffmans, who are adopting a 2-year-old son, say they will foster their spiritual life at a synagogue that recognizes them as what they are: a family. They have since joined Temple Emanu-el.
"For sure, we don't have to hide who we are," Daniel Hoffman said.