June 21, 2025
Author(s): Guest Speaker,
Parashat Sh’lach
Both/And: Being a Proud Queer Zionist Jew in a Post-October 7 World
June 21, 2025 – 25 Sivan 5785
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
My name is AJ, I am the Ritual Coordinator here at Temple Emanuel, and I use they/them pronouns. I am a queer Jew. While this word, “queer,” was probably a slur many of you heard growing up, it has been reclaimed by my community as a catch-all term that encompasses a range of non-binary gender identities. For me, when I first came out 10 years ago, I described myself as “nonbinary” and “bisexual.” But, over the last 10 years, I have become uncomfortable with specific labels to define my identity and prefer to simply say that I am queer.
I’ve always had a clear sense of who I am and have always valued being able to share my identity and journey in the context of community. In high school, I was very active with the Gay Straight Alliance and served as president during my senior year. I chose to attend Emerson College for theater knowing that I would be surrounded by queer community. And after college, I joined a group called Gender Explosion which ran workshops about gender diversity, equity, and inclusion for local theaters. Informally, I have always had a large social network of queer friends, mentors, artists, and activists.
Then came October 7. On the morning of October 7, while Jews around the world watched helplessly, as our beloved Israel was ransacked by terrorists, I happened to be on vacation in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my closest group of childhood friends. I was deeply shaken and upset by what was happening in Israel. A close friend from NFTY was serving in the IDF at the time, I thought at the Nachal Oz base. I shared this with my friends. But they didn’t offer support or sympathy. Instead, they said things like “they shouldn’t have been dancing so close to an open-air prison” and “Israel is a settler colony anyway” and “Did you think decolonization was a metaphor?”
When we left for the airport early the next morning, my friend suggested we go around and say our high points for the weekend. When it was my turn, I said I felt carsick and would share later. I couldn’t shake their indifference to my pain and the pain of my people. I couldn’t stop hearing their hateful words reverberating in my head. I was coming to terms with the fact that our friendships would never be the same. Even if they could somehow hear my pain, even if they would at some point apologize, how could I ever feel safe with them again?
In the following weeks, this dynamic unfolded again and again. One close friend who, as a vegetarian, would regularly eat meals at Hillel actively organized to dismantle the BU Hillel because of their “ties to the Zionist occupation.” My roommates from my very first apartment in Boston– who all had “believe all women” posters on their walls– publicly and proudly denied the sexual assault that took place, as though the image we all saw of Naama Levy’s blood-soaked sweatpants was a figment of our imaginations.
By the way, what happened to me is not unique. After October 7th, in the United States, especially on college campuses, queer community became synonymous with Jew hatred. A Wider Bridge and Eshel, organizations working towards inclusion of queer Jews, released a report on May 5, 2025 entitled “Antisemitism Amplified: a report on LGBTQ Jews and Antisemitism after October 7.” While we may all be familiar with the horrifying statistic that antisemitic events have increased 360% since October 7, this report contains sobering statistics about the reality for LGBTQ Jews. The study was conducted from a pool of 13,000 individuals aged 18-70+. According to the study, LGBTQ Jews who wear identifiable Jewish symbols have a 25% greater chance of experiencing antisemitic harassment than do Jews who are heterosexual or cisgender. 82% of LGTBQ Jews were either “kicked out, blocked, experienced verbal harassment, and/or were made to feel uncomfortable in online queer spaces” with 42% reporting similar harassment in in-person spaces. Roughly half of the survey participants reported losing friends and disengaging from queer spaces.
For me, it wasn’t just the loss of long-term friends or the general alienation I felt in spaces that were formerly supportive. I was also struggling in my professional theater life. The Gaza Monologues, a set of monologues of questionable origin, began making their rounds in the Boston theater scene. In several of the monologues, violence against Israelis is justified as resistance. At the time, the theater I worked for was producing an all queer and trans production of The Rocky Horror Show. One of the cast members approached my boss and asked to read The Gaza Monologues prior to a performance. When my boss brought this up to the staff, I broke down. “Rape is not resistance,” I cried, “as a women-led organization, we should never condone rape or platform any production that suggests that sexual violence is appropriate.” Though my boss told the cast they needed to find a different venue, the cast began to shun me as the evil Jew who silenced them. About two weeks later, another queer theater company where I had worked off and on performed The Gaza Monologues and advertised the production as a “healing space for Palestinian and Muslim members of our community.” I asked if they would be having a healing space for Israelis and Jews in the community. They responded that I should know, having worked there, that they platform marginalized voices. This black and white narrative permeates every corner of Boston theater. So much so that a former theater coworker thought that when I said I was a proud queer Zionist Jew, I was being sarcastic. He thought it had to be satire. When I explained that I genuinely identify as a queer Zionist, he cut off all communication.
After October 7th, I lost almost all of my childhood friends, I lost the queer community that I had worked for years to build, I lost my job offers and my professional relationships in the theater world, and I could not fathom how I could continue working as an activist in the spaces that were formerly so important to me when those same spaces had become so hateful. In the wake of all this loss, a well-meaning friend said to me, “I have to ask. You’ve lost almost all your friends and pretty much your entire livelihood as a theater artist for being so vocally pro-Israel. Wouldn’t it be easier to keep that quiet?”
Yes. Yes it would. My life would be infinitely easier if I was not a queer Zionist Jew. If I was not a Zionist, I would likely still be working in the Boston theater scene. If I was not a Zionist, I would currently be celebrating two engagements and picking out bridal party clothes. But if I wasn’t a Zionist, I wouldn’t be me. I would be betraying an entire piece of myself just to seem more palatable to the world around me, and that has never been who I am. I have lost almost everything- yes. But the friends who stayed with me and the new friendships I have formed are built on loving my full self, not just parts of me.
In November of 2023, on the day our first hostages were released, I received a text from my dear friend and college roommate, who I hadn’t spoken with for a while. When I finally worked up the courage to open the text, it said simply: “Hi. I’m really sorry I haven’t reached out before. I honestly didn’t know what to say. But I’ve been watching everything that’s been happening, and I wanted to let you know that the way you taught me about Judaism and Israel when we lived together made an impact, and I’m proudly Zionist.”
When I lost my job in the summer of 2024, I found that no one would hire me as a queer Zionist. I was sharing my employment woes with a non-Jewish friend who not only commiserated with me about how stupid it was that people wouldn’t consider me at all because I am Jewish and pro-Israel, but also went out of her way to help me find work.
And then, because of all this craziness, I realized that the only place I would be safe as a queer Zionist Jew would be at a Jewish institution and landed here at Temple Emanuel. Since joining this team, I have experienced belonging and love on a level I never could have imagined. Not only can I share my full self, but I have the opportunity to provide the supportive community that I so desperately yearned for all those months. Now I have the chance to help build a queer community that is truly inclusive and that rejects hate of all forms.
Having shared the pain I have experienced over these last months, I want to make sure you do not leave with the message that queer community is bad, or that celebrating and supporting LGBTQ+ people means that you are standing against Israel. That is not the case. You can stand with queer community and stand against Hamas and Antisemitism. There are so many queer people who are feeling alienated and alone right now. There are so many people, just like me, who should not have to choose between personal integrity and community. We need your support more than ever. And together we desperately need to build a world in which we can all stand against hate. Period.
This week, we are reading Parshat Shlach. We all know the story. All of the spies see the same land, the same agricultural wonders, the same physical possibilities, but they have radically different reactions. Only two spies, Joshua and Caleb, are able to see past their own fears towards the promise of Israel for the Jewish people. Our challenge is to be like Joshua and Caleb. Our challenge is to see past the bad behavior of the queer community, to see past the hate that has been directed our way, and to join together to work for a brighter, less hateful future.
Shabbat shalom.
AJ Helman (they/them/theirs) is an educator and artist with a focus on Jewish and LGBTQ+ theater and education. After graduating from Emerson College with a BFA in Theater Education and Performance, AJ remained in Boston, working in the local theater and film industries as both an artist and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion liaison. As part of their activism and educator work, they facilitated workshops on gender diversity in theater and spearheaded better inclusion practices for transgender employees in the film industry thanks to the support of Ryan Reynolds’ and Blake Lively’s Group Effort Initiative. AJ proudly marched with Keshet at San Francisco Pride directly following the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, effectively making LGBTQ+ marriage in the United States legal. In addition to their activism and artistry, AJ is thrilled to be a part of the Temple Emanuel staff as the Ritual Coordinator.