Balancing on the Mechitza : Transgender in Jewish Community

***WINNER, 2011 Lambda Literary Award - Transgender Non-Fiction

While the Jewish mainstream still argues about homosexuality, transgender and gender-variant people have emerged as a distinct Jewish population and as a new chorus of voices. Inspired and nurtured by the successes of the feminist and LGBT movements in the Jewish world, Jews who identify with the “T” now sit in the congregation, marry under the chuppah, and create Jewish families. Balancing on the Mechitza offers a multifaceted portrait of this increasingly visible community.

The contributors—activists, theologians, scholars, and other transgender Jews—share for the first time in a printed volume their theoretical contemplations as well as rite-of-passage and other transformative stories. Balancing on the Mechitza introduces readers to a secular transwoman who interviews her Israeli and Palestinian peers and provides cutting-edge theory about the construction of Jewish personhood in Israel; a transman who serves as legal witness for a man (a role not typically open to persons designated female at birth) during a conversion ritual; a man deprived of testosterone by an illness who comes to identify himself with passion and pride as a Biblical eunuch; and a gender-variant person who explores how to adapt the masculine and feminine pronouns in Hebrew to reflect a non-binary gender reality.

Discusses the role of transgender and gender-variant people in the Jewish community, providing theological contemplations as well as personal narratives of transgendered Jews thriving in the community.

While the mainstream still argues about homosexuality, many transgender and gender-variant people sit in congregations, serve their communities, marry under the chuppah, and otherwise go about the business of creating religious and secular Jewish families. Balancing on the Mechitza gives voice to this moment in Jewish culture. The contributors---activists, theologians, scholars, and others, both transgender and non-transgender allies---share for the first time in a printed volume their interpretations of classical Jewish texts about ambiguous bodies, as well as their sacred and secular stories of Jewish prayer, ritual, and social life.

Essays included in Balancing on the Mechitza share the stories of a transwoman who lives an Orthodox Jewish life; a transman who serves as legal witness for a man (a role not typically open to persons designated female at birth) during a conversion ritual and a gender-queer person who explores how to adapt the masculine and feminine pronouns in Hebrew to reflect a non-binary gender identity. Out of the successes of the feminist movement and the growth of the lesbian and gay rights movement, the "T" is emerging as a distinct Jewish population sounding a chorus of wise, critical, and inspiring voices.

"While the Jewish mainstream still argues about homosexuality, many transgender and gender-variant people sit in the congregation, marry under the chuppah, and create Jewish families. Balancing on the Mechitza gives voice to this movement in Jewish culture"--Provided by publisher.