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Blade photo by Henry Linser
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HOME > OUT IN DC > QUEERY
COMMENTS
 
S.B. Frank has found the perfect dance spot — the gay ballroom dancing classes held at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. The first series of classes were held on Thursday nights through May 29 for all gay and transgender people, regardless of religious affiliation. (Another series will begin in July. Visit washingtondcjcc.org/gloe for more information.)
For Frank, who has become an out Orthodox Jew, having a queer dance space that also honors her spiritual traditions has been a perfect mix. Born in Boulder, Colo., and raised in Arcata, Calif., Frank didn’t embrace her spirituality until adulthood. Her father left the family soon after she was born to return to Israel and become an ultra-Orthodox Jew. Her mother’s spiritual approach was grounded in Judaism, but also based heavily on feminist and liberal politics. Frank eventually attended Smith College in North Hampton, Mass., majoring in political theory and met her partner there. The couple now lives in Washington, where Frank works as the director of annual giving for the Jewish Primary Day School.
I’ve been out 11 years, but as an Orthodox Jewish woman who is assumed to be straight, I have to come out every day. I came out for the first time in middle school (at age 12). After I became a religiously observant Jew at 19, however, I had to come out all over again. The hardest person to tell was myself. It took me over two years to come to terms with the fact that I was really gay, that it wasn’t something I could change, like my dress code, or eating kosher food.
Wonder Woman.
Thursday night Queer Ballroom Dancing at the DCJCC with G.L.O.E.!
I think everyone should have the right to be with their love. However, marriage is too much of an institution for me. Politically, I have strong opinions against marriage — gay or straight — due to the legacy of sexism and oppression associated with it. I can’t seem to separate my personal and positive associations with love and life-long commitment from the hard social consequences of marriage. So, no, I would not tie the knot.
The evolution of our species, i.e. working toward a time when humans are compelled to create instead of destroy life.
Can I only pick one? In 1492 Columbus would not have sailed the ocean blue.
I grew up on a mountain. What happened?
I grew up on a mountain, and I don’t have TV.
My stepfather’s vintage ties from the 1970s.
“B’nei Berak meets Dupont Circle (i.e. ultra-Orthodox Mecca in quasi-socialist Israel meets queer bar district in the world’s largest capitalist empire).”
I think I would want to be abducted by aliens.
Belief can be defined as “a vague idea in which some confidence is placed.” By this definition, I don’t believe in anything, not even the physical world. I do, however, experience the physical world, as well as a vast life force beyond the physicality of our world. Beyond the reality we can touch and see, I feel an endless mystery of beauty and magic. Beyond our known physical world, I experience an awesome, regenerative life force. That life force that my tradition refers to as G-d, is not something “vague” in which I can place my confidence, but rather it is something very strong, at times overpowering, with which I must wrestle to understand and relate to every second of every day.
Spring water. Dates. Warm goat milk with honey. And fresh blueberries. I hate the prison industrial complex … do we have time to talk about that?
If the person on the other side promised me the superpower to enter into and open other people’s hearts.
The butch-femme relationship stereotype.
I wear skirts and heels, do all ...
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