A recent Jewish Heritage Fund survey found that 7% of respondents identified as LGBTQ+. Queer Kentucky has partnered with the Jewish Heritage Fund to uplift queer Jewish people. With anti-Semitism spreading in the United States and abroad, it is important to uplift our Jewish community members. Queer is an identity that crosses racial, geographic, ethnic, class, and cultural boundaries, so the communities we work with are as diverse as the communities in that queer Kentuckians live.

by Lane Levitch he/him

Photos by Meesh Mor

I’ve always had a hard time coming to terms with validating my own identities – Jewish and queer. It’s something I still grapple with. It was a topic I wrote a lot of poems about in college while attending Shabbat services. During this time, I very briefly was talking to a boy who questioned me going to services because “I wasn’t a real Jew” since I never had a bar mitzvah and have tattoos.

I constantly felt like I wasn’t Jewish enough to attend services, even though my family were members at The Temple on US-42 when I was growing up. At the same time, I felt like I “wasn’t trans enough” because I am masc presenting and pass well.

For me, my Jewish identity is heavily tied to my paternal grandmother and her cooking. She always hosted high holy days and cooked the most delicious meals. Unfortunately, I never got to come out to her. Once she passed, my family slowly stopped celebrating holidays and I felt my Jewish identity fade as well. As one identity fizzled out, another one came into the spotlight. I supposed my brain just assumed the two identities couldn’t coexist.

When I moved to Brooklyn, I felt a resurgence in my Jewish identity and eventually met a girl through Hey Alma’s classifieds. I loved getting to explore both of our Jewish and queer identities together and finally feeling like a NJB (Nice Jewish Boy). She was minoring in Jewish studies in school and would often send me Torah passages and interpret them through a queer lens.

Eventually, we learned some Yiddish together and then I enrolled in a class at Temple Emanu-El. In this class, we were able to talk about the intersectionality of being trans and/or in a same-sex relationship whilst being Jewish. I was stopped in the streets to hear Hasidic men blow their shofars. My landlord gave me a recommendation for someone to check my mezuzah scroll.

I would stay off my phone during Shabbat and most people didn’t question it. I was in my little Jewish bubble. Seasons changed and that bubble popped as I was called back to the Bluegrass State. My last Shabbat dinner while living in New York was on the roof of Temple Emanu-El as we bonded over food and watched the sun set over Central Park that was across the street. It was through this congregation that I could start to view myself as both queer and Jewish.

Since returning to Kentucky in 2022, I felt my Jewish and queer identities separate themselves again. I’ve tried forcing them to stay together, but it just felt like I was going against the grain. I am trying to learn that maybe it’s okay that they aren’t blended all the time.

Life ebbs and flows, and maybe my identities can blend once again in the right time. Since my grandmother passed away in 2015, I have learned the simple concept of no two people are alike. Maybe my path won’t cross with another trans masc queer Jew with tattoos from Kentucky; however, that’s okay.

I also have to be gentle and remind myself that I don’t have a lot of [public] trans elders to look up to, so the likelihood of me meeting a Jewish trans elder is slim. However, it does allow me to be a role model for myself and trans youth. It gives me hope for the future, and I cannot wait to hear what the future generations teach me about blending identities.

This past Passover, I had my first Passover dinner since my grandma passed. I’ve since come out as a proud queer trans man, and I’m six and a half years on testosterone. But sitting at my mom and step dad’s table, I felt like I was back in my grandma’s dining room, sitting on her plastic covered dining chairs. My sister was eating the parsley with salt water and I was eating the hard boiled egg, both from the seder plate, just like when we were little kids.

My sister and I got to tell our step dad about our memories around the holiday, and I got to educate everyone about the orange on the seder plate for queer folks. I felt my grandmother’s love and laughter during this meal, and I know she would be proud of who I am today. Each time I visit Anshei Sfard Cemetery, I spend a moment at her grave and then at my grandfather’s, who I never got the chance to meet.

Some moments are just silent, as if I’m just letting them see (and admire) who I have become, and who I am working towards to be. Upon reflecting on my grandmother’s life, I can tell that she lived authentically, and she continues to give me strength to be an authentic queer Jew.