The Queer sessions at Limmud Oz Melbourne 2022

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Melbourne hosts Limmud Oz on September 3 and 4 2022.

This year’s packed programme includes two queer-themed sessions, both on Sunday September 4.

Sunday September 4 • 10:00am – 10:50am • Ruben Shimonov

Sephardic, Mizrahi and LGBTQ+: Lifting our stories out of the margins

How have LGBTQ+ experiences been represented in Sephardic-Mizrahi cultures? What are challenges that Sephardic-Mizrahi Queer Jews have faced in finding spaces that fully embrace their identities? We’ll explore these questions and then focus on the creation of a grassroots movement that has provided a vibrant and much-needed community at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and Sephardic-Mizrahi life.

Sunday September 4 • 12:00pm – 12:50pm • Shoshana Gottlieb

All about Chava: The representation of queer Jewish women in film and television

Let’s examine the ways in which television and film represent (or misrepresent) the Jewish/queer experience and how this may impact our lives and identities.

Check out the full programme here.

Rabbi Mike Moskowitz – powerful LGBTIQ+ ally

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AJN What's On column: Rabbi Mike Moskowitz — AJN What’s On: Conversation with Rabbi Mike Moskowitz

On Sunday @mike_rabbi addressed a gathering at @VicPrideCentre to discuss his activism and advocacy for LGBTIQ+ people. It was invigorating to hear an ultra-Orthodox rabbi speak with unflinching sincerity about such important issues. Thanks to @AgmcAustralia for their support. pic.twitter.com/TUJ7xVMZAl
— Aleph Melbourne (@alephmelbourne) August 16, 2022

L-R: Alexander Teh (AGMC), Susie & Dudi Danziger, Michael Barnett (Aleph Melbourne), Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, Colin Krycer (Aleph Melbourne)

L-R: Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, Michael Barnett (Aleph Melbourne)

AUJS welcomes LGBTQI+ people

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Aleph Melbourne launches 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide

Aleph Melbourne launches its 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide

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MEDIA RELEASE
16 MAY 2022

ALEPH MELBOURNE LAUNCHES 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION VOTERS GUIDE

Aleph Melbourne is proud to announce its 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide. The Voters Guide is designed to inform voters living in voting divisions with high Jewish populations how to best identify candidates for the 2022 Federal Election who have comprehensively demonstrated or pledged support for LGBTIQA+ equality.

Links to the Aleph Melbourne 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide:

The Voters Guide is based on our three question survey asking:

Do you support preventing all discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people (including school settings, sports settings and religious settings)?
Do support preventing coercive surgeries and other non-consensual medical interventions for children born with variations in sex characteristics?
Do you support ensuring access to gender affirmation treatment for trans and gender diverse people through Medicare?

Where a candidate did not respond to our survey we attempted to infer responses from their campaign or party policies.

Our guide contains the names of all candidates in the Federal divisions of Goldstein, Higgins, Hotham, Kooyong, Macnamara and Menzies.

We encourage voters to locate their voting division, review their candidates’ levels of support for LGBTIQ+ issues and vote in a manner that prioritises LGBTIQ+ equality.

We also encourage voters to contact candidates directly if they require additional information not included in the Voters Guide.

The Aleph Melbourne 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide is the sixth in our series of election guides since 2013. Our previous guides:

ENDS

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Michael Barnett
0417-595-541
contact@aleph.org.au

Aleph Melbourne 2022 Federal Election Voters Guide

Aleph Melbourne Voter’s Guide for LGBTIQ+ Equality for the 2022 Federal Election

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Aleph Melbourne Voters Guide

This guide is designed to assist voters living in Victorian voting districts with high Jewish populations* best select candidates who have comprehensively demonstrated or pledged support for LGBTIQA+ equality.

Aleph Melbourne conducted a survey of all candidates in six divisions on issues affecting LGBTIQ+ people.

Feedback, corrections and updates are invited via our contact page. Information is provided here in good faith and on the understanding that it is correct.

This page is optimised for viewing on a full-screen browser.

* Determined from current ABS Census data

Start here:

Statement: Dr Monique Ryan – Independent for Kooyong

Statement from Independent for Kooyong Dr Monique Ryan for Aleph Melbourne in support of the LGBTIQ+ community.

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“Protecting the rights of vulnerable minorities, including the LGBTIQ+ community“
Policy Priorities

The protection of the rights of vulnerable people, including those in the LGBTIQ+ community, is a major priority for Monique. She abhors the way the Religious Discrimination Bill has been weaponised – causing harm and distress to LGBTIQ+ people and other minorities including people with disability – and she would oppose any attempts to compromise the protections that are currently afforded by the Sex Discrimination Act and by state Anti-Discrimination Acts.

Monique condemns the way that trans people have been exposed to ongoing harmful and cruel political posturing throughout this election campaign, and she is aware of the devastation that this hostility inflicts on individuals and communities. She opposes the Save Women’s Sports Bill – and supports the continuation of s42 of the Sex Discrimination Act – as both currently stand. She is concerned that this Bill would further marginalise a vulnerable group of people – especially trans and gender diverse children – who already experience a high degree of social exclusion and isolation. Trans people must be at the centre of discussions involving any legislation that directly impacts them.

If Monique is elected she will work with LGBTIQ+ communities to move equality forward. That means removing anti-LGBTIQ+ exemptions from discrimination law, supporting better mental health services and school inclusion programs, ensuring equity in Medicare for trans and gender diverse people, and putting an end to conversion practices and unnecessary, non-consenting medical interventions on children with variations of sex characteristics.

Monique stands for a community that is inclusive, generous and welcoming.

Further information on Dr Monique Ryan’s policies is available here.

Dr Monique Ryan – Independent for Kooyong – a proud LGBTIQ+ ally

Statement from David Zyngier

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Aleph Melbourne received the following clarifying statement from Glen Eira Councillor Dr David Zyngier on April 4, 2022, issued in response to the tweet from @StrewthQueen below:

As a member of the Greens I fully support and endorse the non-negotiable rights of all people to their fundamental human rights. I fully support the Greens policy on trans rights. I acknowledge as a cis male there is much that I do not fully understand and am open to being educated about issues that impact and effect our LGBTQI+ community. I look forward to future productive conversations with members of the LGBTQI+ community and especially those members of the Greens who identify as trans. If there are transphobic or trans exclusionary members of the Greens, they do not represent Green values or mine.

Hi @alephmelbourne since you endorsed this candidate in 2020, what is your position on Cr. Zyngier's choice to speak over trans people – particularly women – who've taken issue with Cr. Leppert's dissemination of fascist TERF talking points re: self-ID & conversion therapy?
— Strewth 🏳️‍⚧️ (@StrewthQueen) April 3, 2022

Zoe Daniel meets Jews of Pride team at In One Voice 2022

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So pleased that Zoe Daniel @zdaniel visited “Jews of Pride” at "In One Voice" yesterday. Aleph Melbourne commends her policy on Equality: "The rights, safety and equality of LGBTQI+ people must be protected and promoted." https://t.co/XwTtb06TYo #ZoeForGoldstein #GoldsteinVotes pic.twitter.com/13uBVjQAbr
— Aleph Melbourne (@alephmelbourne) March 21, 2022

“we promote communal inclusion for LGBTQI+ Jews”

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Thank you Zeddy.

“…we promote communal inclusion for LGBTQI+ Jews” — Zeddy Lawrence, outgoing editor, @aus_jewishnews https://t.co/FakeOIg3AP
— Aleph Melbourne (@alephmelbourne) March 17, 2022

Purim was the one day I wasn’t in disguise | AJN

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OPINION

Purim was the one day I wasn’t in disguise

From Purim to the Pride March.

By DASSI HERSZBERG
March 17, 2022, 11:16 am

ON Purim – a day when it is customary to hide your true identity – I found mine. As the fifth child in a family of eight, I struggled with my own identity both within my family and our closed ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel community.

Conforming to the strict dress codes expected by my family and surrounding community did not agree with my core perception of self.

Back then, I was considered what you’d call a “tomboy”. I loved to be active. I loved running. I loved climbing trees. I felt absolute discomfort in skirts, stockings (no matter the weather) and “girlie things”.

Riding a bike for girls was not allowed due to modesty codes, but I still managed to get some time on my brother’s bicycle every now and then and I loved it.

George was my favourite character in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five novels. With her short black cropped hair, her competency and her sense of adventure. I loved how everyone accepted her. She was “one of the boys”. I wanted to be George.

As a child, I didn’t have the language nor did I understand that my resistance to wearing skirts wasn’t only about the sense of feeling stifled from a religious perspective. It was also taking away my capacity to understand and explore my identity. My visceral rejection to the clothing wasn’t only because I didn’t understand the religious expectations. It wasn’t that I was a rebel. It just didn’t feel like I was a girl like the other girls around me.

After age three, I could no longer wear pants. That’s the age girls begin adhering to dress codes. Compulsory long sleeves and high-necked tops. I felt discomfort and suffocated. My ability to understand my identity was stifled.

Looking back at my childhood, Purim was the only day I could dress to match the way I felt. To be able to wear a pair of my brother’s pants for the day and dress up as a “boy” dresses, was always the highlight of the year for me.

It felt like a sin yet gave me a sense of liberation. Just for the day.

I now understand that my younger self’s sense of freedom in wearing boys’ clothing had a lot to do with my identity as non-binary.

I believe it was actually a positive saving grace that sexuality and the concept of gender non-conformity was non-existent. There was no language around for such expressions or conversations. That kind of subject matter was never discussed.

Nobody in my family or community could accuse me of being “evil” – at least that part hadn’t been tainted for me.

All of us wear masks at times, to hide ourselves away. Masks protect us. We are forced to wear masks to fit in with society.

But my experience was feeling forced to be dishonest. It’s a strange contradiction, not revealing who I was, was the mask I needed to wear – for self-preservation and protection.

Clothing is not just clothing. It tells a story. Clothing can be used as a “mask”. Clothing can be used to enhance. Clothing can be used as a statement of self-expression. Wearing a skirt feels so incongruous with who I am. Then again, there are days when I feel more feminine. And on those days, I feel a lot more comfortable wearing a skirt, wearing a pretty top and sometimes even putting make up on.

But on those days, when it is my choice to wear more typically feminine clothing, I am wearing them because I am being true to the essence of myself. Not because it’s being forced upon me by religious values.

Every Purim, I personally celebrate the recognition of finding my identity. It falls on my birthday and as such is my true “anniversary”. Purim is also a day when I celebrate my younger self’s sense of exhilaration, striding out of my childhood family home, dressed as a boy.

In a similar way, I felt absolutely elated when I marched under the banner of Pathways Melbourne with the Jews of Pride parade for the first time, wearing the clothes I wanted to wear.

Being surrounded by a diverse group of Jewish and non-Jewish people, each with their own senses of identity – all of us accepting of one another as a colourful member of our broad community. Each with our own story and history of how we “arrived” together.

Dassi Herszberg is a member of the Pathways Melbourne advisory panel and a qualified art therapist and counsellor. For further information, visit pathwaysmelbourne.org