The renowned British actor-comedian-author Stephen Fry has spoken to the UK’s Jewish News of his pride in his gay, Jewish, secular identity.

“I’m as proud of being Jewish as I am as proud of being gay,” he told the newspaper’s new LGBT section on Monday. “And just as I don’t go to shul, I don’t go to gay clubs. The identity can never be taken away from me… for Jews not to celebrate gays within their own community would be a schande, it seems to me, a shame and a disgrace.”

Fry, who rose to fame as one half of the sketch comedy duo Fry and Laurie, was born to a Jewish mother, but raised in a secular environment. For many years he has been one of Britain’s most popular (and controversial) multi-hyphenate intellectuals, and the host of the BBC comedy quiz show QI. In 2006, he appeared in an episode of the genealogy documentary series “Who Do You Think You Are?” in which he traced his the fate of his great-grandparents and extended family from Hungary to Auschwitz. His maternal grandparents emigrated to Britain in 1927, sparing one branch of the family.

When asked by a Twitter follower why he would want to belong to a religion which disapproves of homosexuality, Fry responded thusly:

@JulianStorey @JewishNewsUK Being Jewish is not a matter of religion: I’m a Jew, but don’t follow judaism.

— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) June 24, 2014

And there you have it: Stephen Fry, proud gay Jew.

Related: In the Story of Queen Esther, Echoes of My Own Coming Out

Image: s_bukley / Shutterstock

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The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv is showing its support for Israel’s Gay Pride Week by flying the rainbow pride flag along with the American flag.

Ambassador Dan Shapiro posted an image of the flags to his Facebook page on June 10, along with the following message in both Hebrew and English:

“For the first time in history, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv has raised the Pride flag together with our American flag. We are proud to join with the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo and its residents in celebrating LGBT Pride Week.”

The media response has been overwhelmingly positive, but some commenters were not so pleased. Mary Moskowitz wrote: “Mr. Shapiro, I would like to know what gives you the right to speak for all Americans and hoist a “gay pride” flag along with the American flag? This is a blatant violation of your position as Ambassador to Israel. I am not proud of this and I am sure there are many in the United States and Israel who feel as I do.”

Others commenters weighed in with approval and encouragement. Jeremiah Sammons wrote: “Makes me proud to be an American each time we slowly make our way towards equality and justice for all!” And this, from M.V. Atinous: “This is what core American values are – freedom, liberty, equality…and support for *everyone*. It’s great to see America taking a stand in the world for those who are (or may be) marginalized not only by their fellow countrymen, but also their government.”

The image has received over 1,000 shares and 2,000 likes so far. I think the ayes have it.

Update, June 13: The British Embassy in Tel Aviv is also flying the pride flag.

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Keshet, an organization that campaigns for greater inclusivity and visibility of LGBT Jews in Jewish life, just released a short fictional film about a teenager coming out to his family over Shabbat dinner.

The video depicts David working up the courage to tell his family as they pass food across the Shabbat table and discuss Obama’s recent appearance on Between Two Ferns (great touch). It’s a familiar, intimate scene, but the best part is David’s grandmother’s reaction—without hesitating, she blows him a kiss and says “mazal tov.” It’s a response many gay Jews have longed for from their families and communities, but not received.

The video ends with an the important question—really, an imperative: “How much stronger will our Jewish community be no one is left out?”

(Image: Keshet)

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If you aren’t familiar with the dark, delicious voyeurism that is PostSecret, this is what it is: the diary of the universe, on the internet, in postcard format.

Contributors send a postcard (yep—real, old-fashioned snail-mail) with a secret to the founder of the site, Frank Warren. Each week, Warren selects a bunch of highlights and posts them online. (Archives aren’t visible on the main site, but this unaffiliated Tumblr has ’em all.)

A couple of weeks ago, this postcard went up, and it kind of blew me away. The handwritten note reads: “I’d be much happier married to religious gay man than as a single, Orthodox (straight) woman.” It’s a simple, unadorned statement, but terribly poignant—and I think a little ambiguous. Does she mean, “I’d be much happier married to religious gay man than remain single forever?”

Another possibility: might the author prefer to knowingly be married to a gay religious man than a straight religious man? If so, it’s a pretty damning indictment of her perception of sexism in heteronormative Orthodox Jewish culture. (Of course, this card is reflective of one woman’s experience, and it would be remiss to extrapolate it to apply to all straight Orthodox men.)

Whatever her story, the card provokes a lot of thoughts and—in interwebz speak—feels. Is being a single Orthodox woman more lonesome than being in a sham marriage? Or is this just heaping stereotype upon stereotype?

Your thoughts?

p.s. Kind-of-related: Areleh Harel, the Israeli rabbi who arranges marriages between gay men and gay women.

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This article originally appeared on Repair the World.

Here’s what we’ve learned about gay teen suicides: it takes a village to make them happen, and also to make them stop. Yes, those kids who recently took their lives, in cities across the country, were particularly targeted by particular bullies. But both the bullies and their victims were caught up in systemic webs of hatred, ideology, and culture. Our rabbis, politicians, and community leaders are all responsible, as are all of us, for spreading the fundamental message that gay is not okay — a message that is lethal, and insidious.

The good news is that, since we’re all responsible, if you’re outraged and want to do something, there are a lot of things you can do.

First and most importantly is to “come out,” whether you’re gay, straight, bisexual, questioning, transgender, lesbian, queer, or Whatever, as a supporter of equality. Every study that has been done on homophobia and public opinion of gays has shown the same thing: the most important factor is knowing gay people, or at least knowing visible allies. It’s not geography or ideology — it’s personal contact. If you’re LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender), just being yourself is a form of activism. Obviously, you have to decide when it’s safe to be flamboyant and when it’s wise to be discreet. But know that simply by showing up, you are opening people’s minds.

This is true for allies as well. It can be as simple as wearing rainbow pins, or “Gay? Fine By Me” t-shirts, or other ways to show your solidarity.  But that’s just the beginning. When someone in school says “that’s so gay!” let them know that “gay” is not a synonym for “stupid.” If you’re in an all-straight crowd and someone makes a homophobic remark, don’t let it slide – call them on it, just like you (hopefully) would if they said something anti-Semitic or racist.

In terms of formal volunteering, one way students can get involved is by starting gay-straight alliances (GSA’s) at schools, camps, yeshivas, youth groups, and just about anywhere else. Of course, it’s kind of weird to have a GSA with no (out) gay people in it. But think about it — if you were gay, and not so sure it was safe to come out, imagine how important it is simply that the GSA exists. Even if no gay kid ever joins your GSA, its mere existence has a huge impact on closeted kids, and on would-be homophobes and bullies. There are resources for how to do this online.

You can also take action in your Jewish communities. Here’s the thing: GLBT people have been actively excluded from Jewish life for 2,000 years. So, if synagogues really want to be welcoming, they have to be pro-active. There should be a “GLBT” tab on their websites. Rabbis should periodically talk about GLBT issues. And you, as a gay person or an ally, can help make that happen.

Chances are, your rabbi or community leader will say “But we are welcoming! We just don’t have any gay people!” Ask them how they know that. Ask them what they’ve done to balance out those 2,000 years of oppression with pro-active statements and deeds. Once again, even if no gay people actually come out of the woodwork, just taking these public statements can have a massive impact. They send a clear message: that sexual diversity is natural and healthy, and that all people are truly welcome – even, if you like, made in God’s image.

There are a lot of problems in the world today. Millions of people die every year from preventable disease, our economic system is in disarray, and the world is getting hotter every day. Equality for GLBT people is only one of many important issues — but it is one about which we can act effectively in our home communities. Unlike some of those other macro-problems, equality for GLBT people is ultimately local. We’re not going to change hearts from the top down; we’re going to do it person to person, neighbor to neighbor. You can make a difference, because as the saying says, kol yisrael arevim zeh la’zeh — all of us are responsible for one another.

Sign the Jewish community pledge against homophobic bullying See also: “Paladino’s Bias And The Charedim: Time To Speak Out” by Jeremy Burton and “The Cost Of Standing Idly By” by Rabbi Steven Greenberg.

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In the summer of 2008, four Bay Area Jewish organizations allied to support the California Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling and to defeat a ballot proposition, Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage. In November 2008, Proposition 8 passed, by a narrow margin; the fight for same-sex marriage rights in the State of California continues. Despite the failure to beat back Prop 8, the intra-faith organizing effort of these Bay Area Jewish organizations was itself a success, offering a blueprint to the Jewish community for how we can come together around political and social issues of joint interest. This article was originally published in the Fall issue of Zeek’s quarterly print magazine (subscribe here)–Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Editor, Zeek

When the California Supreme Court issued its historic same-sex marriage ruling on May 15, 2008, a virtual “Kol haKavod!” cheer reverberated throughout Jewish LGBT communities around the country. The community immediately began mobilizing and organizing. In the San Francisco Bay Area, staff and members from the LGBTQ-based Congregation Sha’ar Zahav started planning a visible queer, Jewish celebratory and social justice presence at City Hall.

Progressive Jewish Alliance, a California-based Jewish social justice organization, saw the ruling as a victory for its four-year long campaign to assert equal access to marriage for all people. Yet the organizers realized that the court ruling would be challenged, and began mobilizing for a response. Meanwhile, both the LGBT Alliance at the Jewish Community Federation and the new Bay Area staff of Jewish Mosaic: the National Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity, saw the ruling as an opportunity to foster full inclusion of LGBT Jews in institutional and spiritual Jewish life. In short, these Jewish social justice organizations immediately understood how the marriage ruling advanced their organizational missions and got to work. Nothing out of the ordinary there–turning on a dime is part and parcel of an activist’s life. What was extraordinary, however, was that our four organizations, with separate staffs and different agendas, made a decision to celebrate together and to work together on the inevitable response. In short, we made a decision to try intra-faith organizing. An Intra-faith Ketubah After a joyful celebration on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall, complete with rainbow chuppah, wedding cake, and klezmer music to commemorate the historic first day of legal gay marriage in California, the four organizations plighted our own troth, forming an official coalition called Kol Tzedek (“voice of justice”). It truly is a union that reflects our own diversity. Currently, Kol Tzedek includes straight, bisexual, queer and gay and lesbian people, Israeli and American born Jews, those with Zionist and post-Zionist politics, and people who are single, married, and partnered.  Our collaborative partners have included rabbis, Jewish educators and communal service professionals, lay leaders, genderqueer Jews, students and scholars.  Kol Tzedek is reaching both inside and outside the Jewish community to find these partners, working closely with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, ACLU of Northern California, Jews for Marriage Equality and other LGBT and social justice organizations. The initial focus of the coalition is to organize the Jewish community around the defeat of California Proposition 8, which would amend the California Constitution so that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Following the election, Kol Tzedek will evaluate its work to date, and further articulate its vision, strategies and guidelines regarding any future organizing, including the participation of additional organizations.

Secrets to a Happy Coalition Kol Tzedek’s natural inception and continued harmonious collaborative work can be attributed in large part to he values that underlie our work: We embrace the differences among our four organizations, each of which contribute a wealth of diverse and complementary experience, education, skills and resources. We honor and include each organization’s unique niche and skill set: PJA’s focus is progressive grassroots organizing; Sha’ar Zahav represents the synagogue and family education perspective; Jewish Mosaic’s work is transforming Jewish institutions through professional development, training, research and leadership building approaches, and the LGBT Alliance, as the first of its kind in any North American Federation, provides financial resources, lay leadership and planning on behalf of LGBT Jews in the Bay area. We honor and include individuals’ unique backgrounds and skill sets. Members of the coalition include educators, therapists, social workers, philanthropic leaders, artists, writers, and community organizers, all of whom have important contributions to make. We share a mutual respect and reciprocal investment in successful outcomes for every organization’s goals and visions. To that end, Kol Tzedek decided not to set up its own staffing or to solicit donations. Instead, potential donors are referred to the many organizations working for marriage equality in our community. We do welcome volunteers from our own organizations and from the community at large. We are committed to ensuring Jewish visibility within the statewide effort to defeat Proposition 8. We share progressive, feminist, queer-conscious Jewish values and strategies for galvanizing social change within the Jewish community.

While all these elements are important, we feel it is our shared emphasis on core Jewish, feminist, and queer-conscious values that underscores the collaborative quality of our work. Jewish values tell us to pursue justice, to speak out when we see oppression in our midst. Our feminist and gender queer values prioritize collaboration and mutual respect. These values translate into a group process includes a collective, clear, mutually agreed upon vision agenda and focus. Each contributing organization and participant is encouraged to lead with their strengths. We are like a quartet of four entirely different instruments, and each of us has moments when may perform solo, while other times we are playing together as a unit. And.. Have Fun Ultimately, the collaboration among these different yet very active organizations, all of which speak to the same audience, succeeds because the approach to working together is relational, not territorial. Kol Tzedek’s participants ensure that responsibilities are shared in a way that reflects individual and organizational needs, skills and resources. For example, since PJA’s primary work is grassroots community organizing, it has taken on the role of organizing Jewish phone banking nights in the weeks leading up to the November election. The LGBT Alliance’s role is leadership development and Jewish communal planning around LGBT issues; hence, the LGBT Alliance is organizing regional community discussion events about marriage equality and the No on 8 campaign. Jewish Mosaic provides expertise in creating educational materials, while Sha’ar Zahav offers outreach to other faith institutions. Our focus on dialogue has also helped us navigate the cultural minefields around same-sex marriage. When we first got together in early June to plan our celebration at City Hall, we had some awkward pushback from one of the more moderate secular organizations for marriage equality. Apparently this organization feared our dress code and our behavior might be inappropriate and detrimental to the cause. One of the Kol Tzedek members reacted strongly to what seemed to them a misplaced and unwarrranted assertion of authority. Before responding to the other organization, we took the time to reach consensus among ourselves. That enabled us to meet the other organization with a united front, and to engage them in a constructive dialogue as well. The elements that make an organization work are not always identical to the reasons individuals choose to participate. The four of us have devoted our time and energy to Kol Tzedek because we believe in our mission, because we care about each other and our organizations, and because, well, we have fun. We forget too often that the the zest of collaboration often comes from integrating humor and fun with accountability and honest caring dialogue. It is a real simcha when the work you do and the process you are engaged in can both reflect and embrace the value system that defines your commitment to social justice work. The net effective is meaningful and highly productive organizing.

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