by joe eskenazi
staff writer
Several years back, David H. Novak decided to cash out of his glitzy, L.A. lifestyle and become a rabbi. He was left with two choices: Leave the Conservative movement or jump back into the closet and pretend he wasn’t gay.
He chose the former. He’ll be ordained in May at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.
“I came to the decision that I could not be part of a movement that has on its books a discriminatory policy toward people like me — and, even more important, the 12- or 14-year-old who is starting to wonder about it,” said Novak, who spent some of his childhood in Marin where he attended Conservative Congregation Kol Shofar.
“I had to have a painful break with the Conservative movement. A very painful break.”
Aspiring gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors will not have to face the agonizing decision Novak did after the announcement Monday, March 23 from Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen that New York’s 120-year-old Jewish Theological Seminary will commence ordaining openly homosexual students.
The move comes on the heels of a similar announcement by the University of Judaism’s Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies in Los Angeles, and follows a groundbreaking decision by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards in December that allows institutions to back up their stance on ordaining (or not ordaining) homosexuals with halachic arguments.
For local Conservative rabbis and lay leaders, the announcement was a huge relief after years of petitioning to end a practice they describe as discriminatory and polarizing.
“I know other gays and lesbians who feel quite a bit of pain being part of a movement that they felt is treating them as second-class citizens. I think, psychologically, a decision like this is going to help break that down,” said Bob Numeroff, a board member at San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Sholom and chairman of the synagogue’s gay and lesbian chavurah.
Added Rabbi Marvin Goodman, executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California and former longtime regional head of the United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism, “Having lived in California for 35 years I won’t say ‘what’s the big deal?’ because I know what a big deal this is, but what’s the big deal? It’s hard for me to understand, at times, the hesitancy of people to look at the human side and the bigger picture.”
Eisen’s announcement followed an exhaustive survey querying Conservative attitudes on homosexuality undertaken, pro bono, by his sometime writing collaborator, Hebrew University sociology professor Steven Cohen.
Some highlights of Cohen’s study, which polled 5,583 Conservative leaders and congregants:
• Conservative rabbis overwhelmingly approved homosexual ordination, with 65 percent in favor, 28 percent opposed and the rest undecided. Conservative cantors favor the move by a 67 to 27 percent margin and lay leaders 68 to 28 percent.
• JTS rabbinical students approved allowing homosexuals to openly join them by a 58 to 32 percent margin.
• Male respondents favored gay ordination by a 60 to 33 percent margin, while females overwhelmingly approved, 86 to 10 percent.
Novak applauds Eisen’s “shepherding this through in a way that was dignified and respectful of everyone’s feelings.”
On the cusp of receiving his ordination from a movement he joined out of necessity, Novak is left with bittersweet feelings.
“It’s important for people to understand how grateful I am to the Reform movement for putting forward a position of welcoming gay people as well as people who happen to be married to people who aren’t Jewish,” said Novak, a rabbinical intern at San Francisco’s Jewish Home in 2005-06.
“There are many wonderful people who grew up in the Conservative movement who are gay or lesbian and would like to continue serving the Jewish people as rabbis or cantors. If they’re qualified to get into the Jewish Theological Seminary or Ziegler School, now they can do so. That door will no longer be slammed in their faces, and I’m very pleased about that.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California