Gay Jews

[cscheible]

I am writing a paper on being Jewish and Gay, and I wanted to know how has it affected you? Has it been a challenge? If so, how? Do you feel alienated because of it? Has it caused you to embrace your sexuality and/or spirituality? Has it caused you to try and be straight? Try to convert? any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Tinkerbell047]

I am not Jewish, I am however a bisexual/lesbian Christian, with a very close lesbian-Jewish friend. I don't know how much this would help you, but I was with her through her coming out process.

I was the first person she told about being lesbian, even before she knew I was not straight. It was a big deal for her to verbalize this, saying it, for her, made it more real. It was a tear-filled conversation at 3 am in my bedroom... at that point, she had spent her entire adolescence denying her attraction to women, hoping it would go away. She spent about a year trying to find something in her religion that made her lesbianism okay. She'd dated a few guys, but never so much as kissed them; in the end, she could no longer deny what she knew to be the truth about her. It was hard, she did not come out to her parents, could not. She wound up becoming a Messianic Jew, because it was the only way that she could find to settle her life style with her religion. She no longer practices religion publicly, but rather has a personal relationship with God.

I hope this helped, even though it isn't first person. ^_^

Blessings,
Tink