MIAMI — Daniel Gammerman, a lifelong Orthodox Jew, began noticing some changes at his South Florida synagogue.

Gammerman, who is originally from Brazil but spent most of his adult life in Miami, was no longer being asked by his Rabbi to lead prayers or read the Torah during services — things he had enjoyed doing regularly. One day, his Rabbi gave a pointed speech about the dangers of homosexuality and how it’s “taking over the world.” Gammerman felt the words of warning were directed at him.

In his mid-thirties, Gammerman was beginning to come to terms with his identity as a gay man. After years of therapy and self-discovery, Gammerman began the difficult process of coming out to his family and friends. He eventually separated from his now ex-wife and rebuilt his life as an openly gay man.

“It’s the honest and authentic thing to do,” he said. “Because relationships based out of secrecy and half truths, it’s not sustainable in the long term. Having a double life like that. I couldn’t ... I could no longer live with that.”

But his self-acceptance soon came with rejection from members of his synagogue and his conservative religious community. “I was still trying very hard to belong, but eventually came to a point that I realized that I was not welcome there.”

His experience is not unusual. Dozens of Orthodox Jews like Gammerman have had similar feelings of isolation because of their sexual orientation. In the past decade or so, at least two Jewish organizations, JQY and Eshel, have emerged to advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion in Orthodox spaces and provide resources and support for those who feel ostracized.

One of those groups, Eshel, is turning its attention to Florida, a place where founders say there are fewer welcoming synagogues for LGBTQ+ Jews than in places like New York, despite the Sunshine State’s growing Orthodox population. The rightward shift in state and national politics is also a concern, the group’s founders say.

“The needs in Florida are very acute,” said executive director and co-founder of Eshel, Miryam Kabakov. “A lot of parents are worried about their children, and LGBTQ+ people are worried about discrimination.”

The group met last month in Hollywood to host a weekend retreat during Shabbat — called a shabbaton in Hebrew — for LGBTQ+ people to gather and discuss the unique issues they’re facing in their own religious communities. For the first time, parents and allies were also invited, and many walked away with a better understanding of the experience of their children and friends, said Kabakov.

“When parents come to our large retreat … they go back to their communities with a voice, and they’re able to tell their best friend or tell their other community members. And now no one can say, I don’t know any LGBTQ+ Orthodox people,” Kabakov said.

The event, which was attended by over 50 people, was sponsored by a grant from the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. The partnership was borne out of an effort “to foster greater inclusion and connection within the Jewish community,” said Michelle Labgold, chief planning officer of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

Homosexuality is a divisive issue in most major religions and Judaism is no exception. The Reform Movement generally welcomes LGBTQ+ members and endorses same-sex marriage, but there is less acceptance in Orthodox Judaism, the most religiously strict of the three main streams of American Judaism. Its adherents believe that Jewish law governs all aspects of life — including how to pray, family life and dietary laws.

Some modern Orthodox synagogues have been moving toward inclusion, according to research from Eshel, but most larger Orthodox institutions openly oppose same-sex marriage since the Torah forbids gay sexual acts.

That forces many gay Orthodox Jews with a difficult choice — deny their own sexuality to follow their religious beliefs or face shunning or pressure to leave the community.

In some cases — like Eshel member Brian Mandel, a gay Orthodox Jew who was kicked out of his synagogue in Hollywood — individuals have been asked to leave their Orthodox synagogues altogether, just for being gay.

“Many [LGBTQ+] people feel that they are not welcome in their communities,” said Jeff Katz, an openly gay Orthodox man who splits his time between New York and Boca Raton. “They want to be recognized for who they are and be a part of a community.”

‘Like everybody else’

Eshel is working to change what it calls homophobia in the Orthodox community by helping Orthodox synagogues and day schools recognize the inevitable truth: LGBTQ+ members are already a part of the fabric their institutions.

“Our end goal is for LGBTQ+ Orthodox Jews to belong, just like everybody else … to normalize they are a part of the community just like they were before they came out,” Kabakov said. “And that is what Orthodox gay people want. Many of them want to be like everybody else.”

Another reality is that many LGBTQ+ Jews, according to Eshel’s leaders, may feel pressure to keep their identity a secret from their religious peers due to fears of social isolation — something that becomes much more difficult when they wish to start a family.

“In at least some orthodox spaces, being gay by itself may not make you popular, but it doesn’t necessarily get you kicked out of shul (synagogue),” said Rabbi Steven Greenberg, founding director of Eshel.

Reflecting on his own experience in Cincinnati, Greenberg said he and his partner Steve went to an Orthodox synagogue where people were initially kind and welcoming toward them.

“They may have guessed that we’re a couple, but visually, we look like two friends who are just always showing up at shul together.”

That all changed when Greenberg and his husband became parents and brought their infant surrogate daughter to services. Then, their relationship became clear to everyone.

“They could see that we were two men caring for a baby,” he said. “They asked us not to come back.”

Florida culture wars

Greenberg said he believes there’s a double standard when it comes to homosexuality. He uses the example that Jews aren’t necessarily being banned from synagogue for breaking other types of halacha, or Jewish laws.

“You don’t have to kick somebody out if you suspect that he’s violating a commandment,” Greenberg said.

But, because homosexuality is considered a “culture war” issue, Greenberg suspects it receives more scrutiny.

“Either for questionable business practices, or for eating out at restaurants they shouldn’t, or for not observing the laws of family purity ... No one’s giving them a hard time for that.”

What started as a large retreat for Orthodox and LGBTQ+ people 14 years ago, Eshel has now evolved into both a support group for LGBTQ+ Jews and a place where interested faith leaders and allies can turn for education on how to support their members.

Founders said they learned early on that creating change in the Orthodox community is easier when going directly to the people affected instead of relying on top-down acceptance from Rabbinical groups.

“It’s been very, very hard to get invitations to synagogues, but it’s been very easy to get invitations into people’s living rooms,” Kabakov said. “We realized that the rabbis are the most vulnerable in this picture.”

It is possible for Orthodox rabbis to lose their jobs, their credentials or loyalty from other members of the community if they go too far in their acceptance of homosexuality. It’s a dilemma that Eshel tries to solve by counseling individual rabbis and educating them on the struggles their gay members face.

“In general, I would say rabbis are really struggling not with the law, but with a kind of social posturing,” Greenberg said. “They just don’t want to look like they’re normalizing, or worse, legitimating same sex life choices.”

Through years of conducting interviews with rabbis and synagogues, the group has compiled a list of 278 Orthodox synagogues nationwide with classifications ranging from “highly welcoming” to “mid welcoming.” There are only seven identified in Florida — four considered “highly welcoming” and three “mid-welcoming,” according to Eshel.

A big portion of Eshel’s work, however, is creating spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals to gather and build community.

“When people get together and give each other support, people can find their voice for things that they want to change,” Kabakov said.

Jeff Katz, who is in his 70s, attended last’s month’s Shabbaton and said it was a rare opportunity for the attendees, people who often feel isolated or alienated, to observe Shabbat with other openly gay Orthodox Jews. To him the gathering felt “family-like.”

“This was the first opportunity for people to come together and spend the Shabbat, which is 25 hours together, in a very natural, sweet way,” Katz said. “Everyone left with this high feeling of we are like a new family.”

During Shabbat, or the 25-hour weekly break from labor, observant Jews will normally attend synagogue, pray, and hold other rituals like family meals that begin with a special kiddush, or blessing, recited over wine.

Katz was able to find an Orthodox synagogue in Boca Raton where he does feel accepted, an anomaly in the Orthodox world. Regardless, he said he was grateful for the opportunity to mentor and share his experience with other attendees.

“I always felt that this is the way God made me,” Katz said. “I was always able to integrate those two sides of my being. I was never in conflict with that.”

‘Like you’re wearing a mask’

Daniel Gammerman eventually left his South Florida synagogue — a place that he helped establish and had attended for over five years with his wife and children. Aside from a handful of friends who reached out to him after he left, Gammerman said he never heard from the majority of his community again.

“It took … a lot of work on myself,” Gammerman said. “You have to work on being around people who want to be with you, who accept you as you are .. not you as a facade.”

Gammerman has since remarried to Fernando Bertoncello, who is also from Brazil, and moved to Brickell, but he has not yet found another synagogue where he feels comfortable being himself.

“The most natural question that comes when you show up at a synagogue, especially when I used to show up with my boys, is ‘where’s your wife?’ Gammerman said. “I cannot talk openly about my husband, about my family life, it’s very hard. It’s like you’re wearing a costume, it’s like you’re wearing a mask.”

Gammerman has tried attending other kinds of services at Reform synagogues — a more progressive sect of Judaism that widely accepts LGBTQ+ people. But, for someone who grew up practicing Orthodox traditions, he said the transition doesn’t always feel natural.

“It feels as if I’m going to, let’s say, to services for a different religion,” he said. “It’s nice, but ... it’s kind of hard to fit into the environment in a constant basis.”

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This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.

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