FIRST OPENLY GAY ORTHODOX RABBI TO SPEAK IN CLEVELAND AUGUST 9

Free Evening Lecture Part of 4-day Conference on Jewish Education

July 16, 2010 (Beachwood, OH) – On Monday, August 9, at 7:15 PM, the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi, Rabbi Steve Greenberg, will speak in a free, public lecture at Siegal College on “Gayness and G-d.”  The author of Wrestling with G-d and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, Rabbi Greenberg will share his radical and pragmatic solutions to the conflict between traditional Judaism and homosexuality and touch upon the recent legal responses offered by the Conservative Movement's Law Committee.  Additionally, Rabbi Greenberg will be leading a series of classes during the Siegal College Summer Institute - a 4-day series of workshops, classes and special events exploring Eilu V’Eilu: The Tradition of Sacred Argument in Jewish Life.

During the conference, Rabbi Greenberg will be teaching “Eat, Drink and Change the World,” “Eden, Sodom, and the Laws of Leviticus,” and “Adam and Adamah: Biblical and Rabbinic Models of the Human-Earth Relationship.”   While the evening program is free and open to the community, there is a fee associated with attending the daytime conference lectures which take place on Monday, August 9 and Tuesday, August 10.  For those interested in attending the conference during the day, the cost is $75/day (includes lunch) or $225 for the full conference.  For more information on the conference fees, or to register, contact Siegal College at 216-464-4050 x101 or visit www.siegalcollege.edu.

About Rabbi Steven Greenberg
Rabbi Steven Greenberg is a Senior Teaching Fellow at CLAL -- The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership based in New York City. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Yeshiva University and his rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Since 1985 Rabbi Greenberg has served as a senior educator for CLAL, a think tank, leadership training institute and resource center. He has conducted hundreds of programs for communal lay and professional leaders of Jewish Federations, synagogues and philanthropic institutions in over fifty cities in North America.  

In 1993, while still in the closet, Rabbi Greenberg wrote a ground-breaking article entitled, Gayness and God: Wrestlings of a Gay Orthodox Rabbi, published in Tikkun Magazine. In response to this article, Greenberg received many supportive letters from Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews, gay and straight, and was encouraged to begin the outline of a more serious treatment of the issue. In 1996, Rabbi Greenberg was recognized as a master educator and was awarded a prestigious Jerusalem Fellowship which provided him two years in Jerusalem to study educational policy issues and to research the biblical and rabbinic attitudes towards sexuality.

In addition to being featured in DuBowski’s award-winning documentary, “Trembling Before G-d,” Greenberg joined with the film maker to create a worldwide outreach project employing the film as an educational tool. Following the release of the film in 2001, the duo have conducted over 500 post-screening community dialogues in the US, Canada, Israel, UK, Germany, Mexico and South America. Under the direction of Rabbi Greenberg and Tanya Zion, the outreach project conducted screenings and dialogues in Israel’s religious school system, reaching over 2,000 principals, educators and school counselors and opening up a conversation that had not been previously entertained.

In November, 2003, Dubowski and Greenberg partnered with therapist Naomi Mark to organize the first Orthodox Mental Health Conference on Homosexuality. The Conference brought together Orthodox therapists from all over North America to address the issues faced by gay and lesbian clients and their families for the first time.

The culmination of ten years of struggle, research and thought has come to fruition in Rabbi Greenberg's recently finished book entitled: Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, University of Wisconsin Press (February 2004).

About Siegal College
Siegal College is Cleveland’s higher education resource for classical Jewish learning and modern scholarship.  Siegal College prepares Jewish educators and other communal professionals through degree programs, facilitates the Jewish journey of continuing education students, and provides a nondenominational environment for people of diverse backgrounds to explore Jewish life - past, present, and future.  For more information visit www.siegalcollege.edu.

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