JQT Vancouver is a volunteer-run Jewish queer and trans nonprofit dedicated to 'queering' Jewish space and 'Jewifying' queer space.;xNLx;;xNLx;To return to the online exhibit, please visit: https://www.jqtvancouver.ca/jqt-oral-history-bc
A gay Jewish immigrant from Belarus, Max Dexall (popularly known as "Uncle Max") cruises the men's section of Congregation Schara Tzedeck, Vancouver's oldest orthodox synagogue, to have secret affairs with very closeted married men. According to his niece, Max "worked hard and managed to save a thousand dollars, which he used to open his own shoe store in the 400 block of Main Street" in 1928 (Ablowitz, 2017: 110). A few years later, the store moves to 10th and Granville. The store is successful and Max hires predominantly young gay men to work for him. All the drag queens come to Max's shoe store because he orders beautiful high heels in very large sizes. His store may be the only place where drag queens can get such shoes; it is a little safe gay enclave. When people come to Max's store with their babies, he kisses the baby and says, "the first shoes are free". According to Max's partner, George Hill, "everywhere we go in British Columbia, people come running and say, 'Max, Max, you gave my babies their first shoes". Max and George sell the shoe store in 1978 and live together at 38th and Granville, becoming the only gay Jewish point of reference for a nearby Jewish gay boy, Jeff Lieberman, who would look forward to trick-or-treating and showing off his Halloween costume for Max and George. Read Marsha Ablowitz's 2017 short story on her Uncle Max on JSTOR at this link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/45136224 Click the button below to learn more about Max and Jeff in our online exhibit under "Weaving Stories".
According to Yad Vashem: "The Holocaust was unprecedented genocide, total and systematic, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people. The primary motivation was the Nazis' anti-Semitic racist ideology. Between 1933 and 1941 Nazi Germany pursued a policy that dispossessed the Jews of their rights and their property, followed by the branding and the concentration of the Jewish population. This policy gained broad support in Germany and much of occupied Europe. In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis and their collaborators launched the systematic mass murder of the Jews. By 1945 nearly six million Jews had been murdered."
According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: "As part of the Nazis’ attempt to purify German society and propagate an “Aryan master race,” they condemned homosexuals as “socially aberrant.” Soon after taking office on January 30, 1933, Hitler banned all gay and lesbian organizations." Further, the "Museum’s Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names contains records on people persecuted during World War II under the Nazi regime including Jews, Roma and Sinti, Poles and other Slavic peoples, Soviet prisoners of war, persons with disabilities, political prisoners, trade union leaders, "subversive" artists, those Catholic and Lutheran clergy who were seen as opponents of the regime, resisters, Jehovah's Witnesses, male homosexuals, and criminal offenders, among others." Learn more in the Arolsen Archives here: https://arolsen-archives.org/en/about-us/statements/nazi-persecution-of-queer-people/
Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau proposes amendments to Bill C-150—the Omnibus Bill—on December 21, 1967, which includes the decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity in Canada. The Omnibus Bill passes the third reading in the House of Commons on May 14, 1969 and is granted Royal Assent on June 27, 1969 under Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government.
On June 28, 1969, after facing years of police brutality and discrimination, patrons of New York’s Stonewall Inn refuse to go quietly as police raid the bar. Gay bars like the Stonewall Inn are important refuges for LGBTQ folks threatened with violence and jail time just for displaying same-sex affection in public. The Stonewall raid sparks a riot among patrons and neighbours and leads to 6 days of protests and violent clashes with police. Trans women of colour are some of the key people involved in organizing and spearheading the acts of resistance that night and in the following days. Note from JQT: "The BC Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project" had the privilege of interviewing members of our own community who were at the Stonewall Riots and/or involved in the resistance that followed. The impacts of the events at Stonewall cannot be overstated. It galvanized our fight for the rights and protections we have today. Just as in 1969, there is work to be done in support of minority rights at home and in every country in the world. And just as in 1969, we are reminded of the power we have when we stand together in defiance of those who seek to divide us.
With the passing of Bill C-150 and the feminist movement, Vancouver's West End ("gaybourhood") starts to open up throughout the 1970s and quickly becomes a hub for the LGBTQ+ community. Notable spots and activities include bath houses, bars, bowling leagues, running groups, self-defense classes and bookstores.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a group of Jewish gay men, including Uncle Max, help organize one of the first LGBTQ Jewish groups in Vancouver. "They had some lively parties and talked about celebrating a gay Passover together, even starting a gay synagogue like the one in San Francisco" (Ablowitz, 2017: 111). There are people interested and willing to start fundraising for a gay synagogue in Vancouver. Unfortunately, the key person behind the group ends up in jail for embezzlement at work, so the project does not go anywhere. Decades later in 1992, Congregation Keshet Shalom in Toronto establishes as the first LGBTQ+ synagogue in Canada, followed by Congregation Shir Libeynu in Toronto in 1997, which will become Canada's longest-running synagogue established by LGBTQ+ Jews.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, many Jewish women and Jewish lesbian women in Vancouver are at the forefront of the women's liberation movement, involved in radical feminist organizations like Press Gang, WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre (today, Salal Sexual Violence Support Centre), Women's Self-Help Counselling Collective, and the BC Federation of Women.
A group of Jewish lesbians in Vancouver start a Passover Seder tradition by grabbing a couple yellow milk crates and two pieces of plywood from Mum's Repairs (a self-help auto-collective garage), and draping a bedsheet over to form a make-shift Seder table. Does anyone have photos from this first Seder? Many members of this group would eventually move away from Vancouver and carry on with this annual tradition in their respective places. It is still going strong today in Victoria, and was documented in a focus piece on The Klezbians: https://www.jqtvancouver.ca/jqt-oral-history-bc/the-klezbians
A group of Jewish gay and lesbian people in Vancouver meet regularly, hosting interesting events and a Seder, which coincides that year with Easter. All of the gay men show up in suits and ties, and suddenly stand up to announce that they will now go to church and leave the Seder table. Note from JQT: Recollections of the group's name is a bit fuzzy in the interviews. If anyone can confirm the name of this group, please email info@jqtvancouver.ca
Jewish lesbian feminist and activist Ellen Frank helps organize the 1977 International Women's Day Parade along Georgia Street in Vancouver. "As a pioneer in Vancouver’s emerging lesbian rights and visibility movement, Ellen was tireless in promoting lesbian pride. In May 1981, she helped organize one of North America’s first documented lesbian pride marches, held in downtown Vancouver. Some 200 lesbians took part in the march, which was part of the Bi-National Lesbian Conference."
The first Canadian case of HIV/AIDS is detected in 1982 and goes on to have a devastating and pandemic impact on the gay community in Vancouver and around the world.
A group of Jewish lesbian women in Vancouver form a discussion group that gathers at least once a month in each other's houses for the next 17 years. The group organizes "unlearning antisemitism" workshops in conjunction with people who are organizing "unlearning racism" workshops. The core group is around 8-9 women and rumour is that it all started with a labrys and a Jewish star.
AIDS Vancouver establishes in 1983 with Alan Herbert Z"L, a Jewish gay man living with HIV, as its Board Chair. Alan reflects back on his time at AIDS Vancouver in this video clip courtesy of AIDS Vancouver. Click on button below "Find out more" or on "Play video".
In the essay "A history of medical services for transsexual people in British Columbia, 1970-2007", author Rodney Hunt writes: "In 1984 the Centre for Sexuality, Reproductive Health and Gender Issues (The Gender Clinic) in Vancouver General Hospital was established by Dr. Diane Watson to focus on the assessment and treatment of transsexual people." In 1985, Marc Gelmon, a young Jewish trans man from Richmond, begins testosterone therapy with the help of Dr. Watson at the Gender Clinic. Click on the button below to read Hunt's essay.
A group of Jewish lesbian women in Vancouver put together a radical feminist Passover Hagaddah for a 40-60 person Seder, held in the daycare gym at the University of British Columbia. Click on the button below for a scanned copy of the Hagaddah!
Alan Herbert from AIDS Vancouver helps to establish McLaren House, housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. It eventually closes in 1993, but the McLaren Housing Society of BC is still active today. In 1996, he becomes a Vancouver City Councillor.
A group of Jewish lesbian women in Vancouver organize a workshop on the intersection of political action and lesbianism at the BC Regional Lesbian Conference in 1990. Note from JQT: Interviewee remembered that this conference occurred in Vancouver in 1990, but archives indicate that it may have been in 1981.
Caryl Dolinko, a Jewish lesbian woman, establishes Mabel League—a women's fastpitch softball team—in Vancouver in 1990. The league continues today and has since expanded into 22 teams and 400+ league members!
Vancouver holds Celebration '90 Gay Games III & Cultural Festival in August 1990, the first Gay Games located outside of the United States. More than 7,000 athletes from 27 countries attend. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country in Montreal, a police riot breaks out at a gay bar called Sex Garage. According to one of the project's interviewees, backlash against police actions never came. Read about the Sex Garage raid click on 'Find out more'
Uncle Max, who ran the shoe store, bequeaths the Louis Brier Home and Hospital $1,000,000 upon his passing. It is the largest donation at that point that Louis Brier had ever received by a private donor.
Debby Yaffe, a Jewish lesbian professor, and her feminist lesbian colleague Michelle Pujol co-teach the first lesbian course at the University of Victoria in the Department of Women's Studies, sparking controversy on campus. The course is titled, "Sinister Wisdom." Photo courtesy of Debby Yaffe, who writes the caption of the photo: "To celebrate and commemorate the first lesbian studies course at the University of Victoria, presented to professor Debbie (sic) Yaffe with appreciation and thanks from the Sinister Wisdom class of Spring 1994". Read more about Debby in the UVic Archives by clicking on the button below.
The very first Conservative Jewish gay "marriage" ever is a Jewish gay couple in New York. One weekend later, the very first Conservative Jewish lesbian "marriage" ceremony takes place in the home of Jewish lesbian couple Dr. Aaron Devor (then known as Holly Devor) and Lynn Greenhough in Victoria by a Conservative rabbi, who officiates the ceremony despite a ruling from the law committee that came down prohibiting it just three days prior to the wedding. There will be no more Conservative same-sex marriages anywhere until a 2006 ruling allowing them.
Many Jewish lesbian women attend a spirituality camp at Loon Lake, BC, north of Cache Creek, in 1994. These women of all religions enjoy a Shabbat dinner together, led by Jewish lesbian Bayla Greenspoon.
Mark Miller sends a letter to the Editor of the Western Jewish Bulletin on August 22, 1997 referring to events in 1995: "just a clarification of a point in the article "Or Shalom marches in gay parade". The author notes that "The Jewish community...had a presence for the second year in a row at the...Aug.3 extravaganza." In fact, Kehillah (gay Jews of Vancouver) marched in the Pride Parade for three consecutive years and displayed educational materials at a booth at the post-parade festival at Sunset Beach - well before Or Shalom became a presence. Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading more about gay Jewish issues in the Western Jewish Bulletin."
Alan Herbert from AIDS Vancouver becomes the first Jewish gay man to Chair the Vancouver Pride Society.
In the mid-1990s, a young and closeted gay boy, Jeff Lieberman, in Vancouver attempts to organize a west coast regional benefit for a LGBTQ organization on behalf of United Synagogue Youth, the conservative movement's youth organization out of Congregation Beth Israel, but had to cancel upon receiving pushback from both his regional director and congregational rabbi who said, "I understand that you're trying to plan this project, and it's just not something that I think anyone can really condone at this time...[and] that the United Synagogue movement nationally, or internationally, had not endorsed same-sex marriage, or gay rabbis, or anything else like that and it would just open such a can of worms that nobody would be able to authorize it in the first place."
Debby Yaffe, a Jewish lesbian professor in the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Victoria, introduces the first Jewish feminist thought class in Canada. The class, titled "Jewish Feminist Thought," is born out of Debby's realization that there is no Jewish content in any of the courses, making her feel "completely invisible." The course is not about religion, it is about the culture: "if you took the Jews out of feminism, you wouldn't have feminism. In fact, if you took the Jews out of lesbian politics, you wouldn't have lesbian politics."
Vancouver wins the bid to hold the 11th International Conference on AIDS; the theme is "One World, One Hope." During the conference, Dr. Julio Montaner announces the "discovery of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for HIV," which becomes "the new global standard for treating" the virus in the years to come.
Or Shalom Synagogue, a renewal synagogue, participates in the 19th Pride Parade and is the first formal participation of any Jewish organization in the Pride Parade in Vancouver. An interviewee shares, "What happened was they had sent the photographer down to the Parade to take pictures of, you know, the Or Shalom participants, but also others, and the photo spread of the Pride Parade was considered a little on the controversial side... some pictures were deemed immodest" to run in the Jewish Western Bulletin.
A secular group for Jewish queer women known as Shvesters (Yiddish word for a sister or nurse) meet regularly for the High Holidays and some Shabbat gatherings—many of whom do not read Hebrew or know Jewish prayers—to share meals together, date and have fun! Photo Courtesy of Emet Davis
A group of Jewish lesbian women organize a Seder in 1997 at the James Bay Community Centre in Victoria.
Rabbi David Mivasair of Or Shalom synagogue, a renewal synagogue in Vancouver, along with other Jewish leaders oppose a letter signed by Vancouver's Orthodox rabbis lobbying the province to halt proposed same-sex marriage laws. Read the article in the Jewish Western Bulletin on July 18, 1997 and a Letter to the Editor from a Jewish gay man in response.
Syd Lapan celebrates Hanukkah in 1997 or 1998 in rural Comox with a bunch of non-Jewish lesbian friends.
Ruth Simkin publishes "Like an Orange on a Seder Plate: Our Lesbian Haggadah" in 1999. Here is an excerpt from the first page: "Our Seder is a celebration of the traditional Jewish holiday of Passover, and a nontraditional celebration of our joined lives as Jewish and non-Jewish lesbians and friends. This is a radical Seder."
Cynthia Ramsay, Pat Johnson, and Kyle Berger put in a bid to buy the Jewish Western Bulletin, continuing the legacy of documenting the Jewish community through the pages of the "Jewish Independent". Unlike the paper's former owners, these colleagues and friends are young secular Jews, who are "firm advocates of free speech and believed that journalism should be as objective as possible" and will extend coverage to include those on the periphery of the community. For this project, we had the honour of interviewing Pat Johnson, who also wrote for Xtra Magazine and Angles (two Vancouver queer community papers). Thanks to him and Cynthia Ramsay, who will eventually become a founding board member of JQT Vancouver in 2020, we gained access to many articles chronicling local Jewish queer trans people and movements. Read Cynthia Ramsay's reflection on owning the paper for 18 years in this 2017 article by clicking on the button below.
In the early 2000s, Or Shalom Synagogue, a renewal synagogue, in Vancouver holds forums to discuss marrying two Jewish people of the same sex. A private Jewish lesbian marriage ceremony performed by Rabbi David Mivasair of Or Shalom Synagogue sparks a local debate. Read the full article in the Jewish Western Bulletin on August 18, 2000.
The road to same-sex marriage officiation comes in waves of progress in the Reform movement. Click to learn more about the resolution from the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Rabbinic organization of Reform Rabbis in North America.
Congregation Emanu-El, a Conservative synagogue in Victoria, welcomes Dr. Aaron Devor (then known as Holly Devor), its first out Jewish lesbian woman as president. To our knowledge, this is also a first to have an out Jewish president of any Conservative synagogue worldwide.
In the early to mid 2000s, a Jewish lesbian theoretician and worker against PTSD around sexual abuse presents at Temple Sholom, a reform synagogue in Vancouver, and a handful of affinity groups form called the 'Glowing Alefs'.
With support from an employee of Jewish Family Services Agency, a group of Jewish parents of gay and lesbian children form a small group called "J PFlag" through Congregation Beth Israel, a conservative synagogue in Vancouver. Learn more about PFlag Vancouver by clicking the button below.
A couple Jewish lesbian women organize Passover Seders and Hanukkah with their Maa land community between 2001-2005. Maa Land Co-op is a rural land co-operative that provides affordable, off-grid living on 88 acres of forested mountainside in the Bird Creek Watershed near Nelson, BC. The nearest place they can purchase a hanukkiah (menorah) is at a kid's store called Mountain Baby run by a Jewish woman in Nelson. One of these women is Karen Newmoon, who identifies as an Indigenous Jewish land dyke.
The first public gender transition Jewish ceremony for Dr. Aaron Devor is celebrated by the whole Jewish community and a Conservative rabbi in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria. To our knowledge, this is the first gender transition ceremony in the Jewish community worldwide.
British Columbia becomes the second Canadian province, after Ontario, to legalize same-sex marriage.
Dr. Aaron Devor, a Jewish trans man and Lynn Greenhough, a Jewish woman and now rabbi, marry in the first wedding involving an out trans man and the whole community of over 200 people by a conservative rabbi in a conservative synagogue worldwide. The ceremony took place at Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria.
Jewish Family Services Agency of Vancouver receives funding from Jewish Community Foundation to conduct a Jewish LGBTQ+ needs assessment in 2004. The objectives of the study are to: 1) assess the current needs of the Jewish LGBTQ+ community; and 2) determine what kind of programs and activities will engage Jewish LGBTQ+ persons in the Jewish community. Jacqueline Walters, a former counsellor at JFSA, conducts the assessment with 56 Jewish queer and trans participants with an online survey and focus groups. Unfortunately, nothing is done with the assessment and it will collect dust for nearly two decades until it gets uploaded to this project's timeline for all of you to read. Read the Executive Summary, Final Report, Online Survey and Statistics from this assessment.
Caryl Dolinko from Mabel League starts to volunteer at Vancouver Pride Society and eventually becomes staff. Within 8 years, Caryl transforms Vancouver Pride Society from a $40K organization into a $900K organization, seeking corporate sponsorship for the Pride Parade. Caryl will eventually be the MC at the 2016 Vancouver Pride Parade and pose with Prime Minister Trudeau, his wife Sophie Trudeau, and Minister of Defense Harjit Sajjan.
Rabbi David Mivasair, now spiritual leader of Vancouver's progressive, activist synagogue Ahavat Olam, garners support from several hundred people from most Canadian faith groups together in support of Canada's proposed legislation recognizing same-sex marriage. Read the Jewish Western Bulletin article on April 15, 2005.
The Pride in Art collective (1998) becomes a not-for-profit Society in 2006, spearheaded by queer Jewish artist SD Holman (aka Shaira Holman). SD Holman goes on to found the Queer Arts Festival in 2008 and SUM Gallery in 2018, the only queer-mandated gallery in Canada and one of very few in the world, serving as Artistic Director to both from 2006-2022.
A LGBTQ+ seniors group with Jewish members establishes "Quirk-e" (Queer Imaging & Riting Kollective for Elders). They describe that their work is "to change the world with our stories, while providing a safe place to nurture a vibrant entertaining voice for the senior queer citizens of Vancouver. We are a group of GLBT seniors who have experienced discrimination in our youth and some of us may be facing old age single, disabled and isolated. But we are nonetheless a discordant and unruly choir, insisting, despite the odds, on showing the height, depth and breadth of our experiences."
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