A review by julis
Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition by Steven Greenberg

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

5.0

This has been on my to-read list for years, since I started attending shul, then it came into my hands last fall, then I…could not work up the courage to read it.

If you’re Jewish (or thinking about it) and queer, read this book. Rabbi Greenberg is an Orthodox gay man, and that is the specific audience he is targeting–Orthodox Jews and Orthodox (or Conservadox) gay men who are struggling with Leviticus 18:22 and themselves. It was not written for Reform Jews, queer women, aro/ace spectrum people, or trans people, but the text was not written for people like us. The text is used to attack people like him, and this is the structure he is most suited to unpacking. He breaks down different ways to read Leviticus 18:22, different ways to enact it in 21st century Judaism, and different ways to be an Orthodox gay Jew.

If you’re not Jewish, or you have no experience with Jewish textual interpretation, I recommend taking a Judaism 101 class first, because this is not a light read and while he’s trying to explain as he goes, this isn’t aimed at goyim. It’s just not.

In addition to the above qualifiers about the content, this book was published in 2004. A lot has changed for queer people in the last 18 years. A lot has changed in Judaism in the last 18 years. Read this book accordingly.