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Friday December 21, 2007

Federation’s LGBT Alliance gets a pioneering new leader

by dan pine
staff writer

Try interviewing Lisa Finkelstein and you won’t get far. Within a minute or two she’ll start interviewing you. “I’m just interested in people,” she says cheerily.

That trait will come in handy as Finkelstein settles into her new post as director of the LGBT Alliance, a division of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.

She takes over for former director Bonnie Feinberg. Long before taking the job, Finkelstein happened to meet Feinberg and was duly impressed. “I thought what she did was amazing,” recalls Finkelstein. “What a great thing to work toward, community change.”

The LGBT Alliance traces its origins to the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the Jewish Community Federation, launched in 1996. In 2001 the task force formed the LGBT Alliance. It is the first and only LGBT division at an American Jewish federation.

Over the years, the alliance has sponsored numerous social gatherings, holiday celebrations, film screenings, museum tours and excursions for LGBT Jews, their partners and families. None of that will change under Finkelstein.

What will change under her leadership? She’ll have to get back to you. After all, she has been on the job only a few weeks.

“We’re refreshing,” she says, using the lingo for updating a Web page. “We’re still in the brainstorming phase. This is an organization that has had incredible leaders like [task force organizer] Al Baum, and that Bonnie transformed. Hopefully I can pick up what they did so incredibly well.”

One thing Finkelstein, 30, already does well is making one-on-one connections, even with people who may not embrace the LGBT community. She recalls a conversation a few years ago with an East Coast Orthodox rabbi, during which Finkelstein asked for his thoughts on gay and lesbian Jews.

“Oh, we haven’t had that problem yet,” she remembers him saying.

“I said, what do you mean, ‘problem’? Then we had a beautiful conversation. We dropped the semantics.”

A native of St. Louis, Finkelstein grew up in a Reform household rich with Jewish culture. Not to mention a pioneer spirit: Her grandmother was the first woman pharmacist west of the Mississippi River.

She considers her summers at Jewish summer camps like Camp Ben Frankel in Carbondale, Ill., among her most life-changing experiences.

As for her sexual orientation, Finkelstein says, “I’m queer. I’ve always been queer. Never a doubt about it.” She formally came out while attending the University of Oregon, where she participated in Hillel and “queer activism.”

After graduating, she launched her career as a high school teacher, specializing in educating runaway and homeless youth. In 2000 she moved to Denver to launch charter schools for children from low-income families.

Soon she met Jared Polis, the wealthy Denver entrepreneur who started the successful online greeting card company Bluemountainarts.com. He was running for the State Board of Education, and asked Finkelstein to work on his campaign.

She later served as director of Polis’ philanthropic foundation. For her, social justice work is “something you have to do. It’s as important as going to work in the morning.”

Finkelstein moved to San Francisco in 2006 to serve as director of programs of the Full Circle Fund, a Bay Area philanthropic organization. She is also a docent at the Conservatory of Flowers.

Today, the LGBT Alliance falls under the federation’s programming and planning department, which Finkelstein believes will free her hand to expand its scope. Whatever direction she steers the alliance, it will surely involve community building and a little repair of the world.

“I believe in living as if you pay rent to be part of the community,” she says. “To live on this earth and to be a Jew, tzedakah should be a way of life.”

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