June is Pride Month — named for the Stonewall Uprising of June 1969, when a movement for full inclusion and equal rights for all people regardless of their sexuality or gender identity changed the world.
Last month, I was deeply honored to receive the Allyship Award from JQ International, a remarkable organization right here in Los Angeles whose mission is to celebrate and strengthen queer Jewish life through community building, education, and support services. I am deeply committed to the work of LGBTQ+ inclusion — especially at this moment, when Jews in some of these spaces are being asked to choose between aspects of their identities and to reject their love of Israel and their Zionism.
In honor of Pride, and in connection to this week’s parasha, B’ha’alot’cha — which does not simply tell us to kindle the lights of the menorah, but to cause that light to go up, and with it, the light of goodness and love in the world — I share the words below which I delivered at the JQ gala held on our campus on May 3. In that spirit, may more light, and love, and goodness rise up in our world.
That commitment has been shaped by my journey. I grew up in the Midwest in the 1970s. On the elementary school playground, calling another boy the “f-word” or saying something was “gay” was the ultimate put-down. I share that because I know how far I have traveled — and how far we still have to go.
That journey has not been solitary. My mother — of blessed memory — Hermene Zweiback, and my aunt, Judy Zweiback, who just turned 90, showed me what courage looks like. In the mid-1980s in Omaha, they organized a weekly brunch for AIDS patients at the Temple alongside their rabbi, Aryeh Azriel — over the objections of people who didn’t want AIDS patients eating off the Temple cutlery or entering the building. They didn’t care. Those brunches went on for years.
I am grateful to my beloved friend and colleague Rabbi Sydney Mintz, who has helped me grow in this work more than she knows — she sends her love from the Bay Area. To my spouse Jacqueline and our daughters Isa, Ariela, and Naomi, who model embracing love every day. And to organizations like JQ, which have made me a better rabbi and a better human being.
I am also grateful to be part of a tradition wise and resilient enough to keep evolving. The north star of that evolution is our core values. B’tzelem Elohim — every human being created in God’s image. Not some people. Every person. And pikuach nefesh — the preservation of human life — so central that it overrides virtually every other value we hold. This is a matter of life and death. According to the Trevor Project’s 2024 survey, LGBTQ+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers, and 39% seriously considered it in the past year alone. This is not a statistic. This is a moral emergency. This is why JQ’s work is not optional. Inclusion is sacred obligation.
Which brings me to something I need to say plainly. Full inclusion must mean queer spaces welcome Jews fully — with their whole identities, including their love for Israel and their belief that Jewish return to our ancestral homeland is a right no less fundamental than the right to love whom we wish. We cannot champion belonging selectively. Either everyone belongs, or the word means nothing.
True allyship asks us to keep showing up, keep learning, and keep creating spaces where every person knows, without doubt, that they are seen — and that who they are is sanctified.
I am deeply humbled by this award, and deeply grateful to JQ for the courage, warmth, and care you bring to this work. Thank you.
Rabbi Yoshi and Rabbi Eli Herscher at the JQ Allyship Awards last month at Wise. Rabbi Herscher was awarded the Allyship award three years ago.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi