Category: Culture/Tradition

Keshet fundraiser Midsumma event: Mother/SON

Progressive Judaism Victoria invite you to their Keshet fund-raiser evening on January 18 2012 during the Midsumma festival.  Half of the proceeds of this evening go toward the Keshet program, to benefit GLBT people in Victoria.

See the flyer below for details or check out the event on Facebook.  More details of the event on the Midsumma and Theatre Works sites.  Note, you must book directly via PJV if you want to assist the Keshet fund-raiser.

Mother Son Flier

Israeli gays ‘come out’ earlier | JPost

[SOURCE]

The number of Israeli lesbian, gay and bisexual teens who identify their sexual leanings and “come out” to their family and friends has grown dramatically in the past two decades, with the average age dropping from 25 in 1991 to 16 in 2010, according to Tel Aviv University researchers.

In a new study published in the journal Family Relations on the stress factors and the mental health of sexual minorities, Dr. Guy Shilo of TAU’s Bob Shapell School of Social Work reported that family support and acceptance is becoming increasingly essential for LGB youth. “Family support is a crucial variable in the mental health of young LGBs, higher than peer support,” wrote Shilo, noting that it is difficult for LGB teens to separate themselves from unsupportive families because they are still dependent on them for their welfare.

Shilo and his colleague Prof. Riki Savaya conducted a study of 461 self-identified LGB youth aged 16 to 23 to examine how stress related to being part of a minority group was impacting their mental health. To determine stress levels, the researchers questioned participants on how they felt about their family, friends and peer support, as well as their connection to the LGB community for emotional support. Participants were evaluated for mental distress and feelings of well-being – the polar negative and positive of mental health.

While peer support certainly had an impact on the mental health of participants, the researchers discovered that family support was more central to their sense of well-being.

A lack of family support was found to significantly heighten mental distress among the study participants, which can lead to depression.

In addition, they found that family acceptance had the strongest positive impact on self-acceptance of sexual orientation.

Adult LGBs who lack the support of their families, explained Shilo, often react by leaving their families behind. They build separate lives that can include “families of choice,” where peer groups – mainly from the LGB community – form an alternative family structure and give each other the same emotional support and sense of belonging that a family is meant to provide. But this is not always a viable option at a younger age.

Today, more adolescents are open about their sexual orientation – and the younger they are, the more important family connections tend to be, wrote Shilo, who works with Beit Dror, a shelter for runaway LGB youth in central Tel Aviv supported by the municipality and the Welfare and Social Services Ministry and the Israel Gay Youth Organization.

The average 16-year-old is still in school and depends on family for financial support, food and shelter. “They can’t just get up and go.”

The tendency of LGBs to come out earlier in life derives from social and cultural progress, concluded Shilo. Most adult LGBs knew they were homosexual or bisexual at the age of nine or 10, he maintained. “The increasing respect and recognition of the rights of sexual minorities have provided the encouragement to ‘come out’ at an earlier age,” he wrote.

“Jewish Gentle” and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living

“Jewish Gentle” and Other Stories
of Gay-Jewish Living
is hot off the presses!!!!

Jewish Gentle
“Jewish Gentle” and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living explores various aspects of gay-Jewish life: coming out to self and family; (re)defining one’s relationship to tradition and faith; surviving child abuse and teenage sexual identity angst; experiencing the adult joys and heartbreaks of dating, of forming relationships, and of losing them; coping with HIV/AIDS; considering parenting; and dealing with old age.
Mirroring the diversity within contemporary American Jewish life, the main characters in these 24 stories are Jewish, but in various ways—some wrestle with religion, others with their place in tradition and community. Yet for other characters here, Jewish identity is not at issue in the pursuit of happiness, love, and inner peace; rather, Jewishness is a cornerstone given, a foundational lens through which these characters see and examine the world and self.
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From the Introduction by Andrew Ramer:
“We know the territory that Jaffe writes in—lush, stark, unexpected, a Jordan flowing through it with Real on one bank and Dream on the other. Jaffe is not afraid to write about violence, or blasphemy, sometimes comically and sometimes horrifically….you are holding in your hands this new book of his. Where fractured novel and story collection are Velcroed to the music he composes, his Torah of the moment, the stories of our gay queer Jewish lives, seen and reseen, heard and reheard, with a lush orchestra of lived experience playing in the background. A collection of stories that could be a novel, the sections of a novel shuffled like a deck of cards. A lush Jewish gamelan for queer ears, queer hearts, queer minds. And otherwise.”
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“Jaffe tells it like it is and while his writing is beautifully sublime, his plots are unexpected. Nothing scares Jaffe and he writes about what he feels and what he feels like– be it violent or even blasphemous…. we have his writings to cast a glow on our lives. He gives us songs of life…and as we read we hear his gorgeous symphony in our minds. I wanted to get up and dance because the music/writing moved me so.” From a review by Amos Lassen.
Available in paperback or e-book format at Amazon.com: