EXHIBITION | HONORING OUR QUEER ELDERS
Introduction
By Rabbi Camille Shira Angel
“Honoring Our Queer Elders” is a curated exhibition of legacy videos comprised of oral histories from a diverse group of LGBTQIA+ Jewish elders living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each video, distilled from about 12 hours of total footage, consists of in-depth interviews conducted by undergraduate students from the University of San Francisco (USF) who were enrolled in a groundbreaking community engaged learning Jewish studies course taught by the first Rabbi-in-Residence in school history, Camille Shira Angel.
These autobiographical, narrative-based interviews are a reservoir of information, wisdom, and encouragement for students and leaders, historians and activists. As these elders have been in San Francisco for decades, they are living sources of invaluable history. They contain irreplaceable insight into many of the profound experiences that shaped the queer nexus that San Francisco has become over the last half century.
BRIEF HISTORY OF JEWS AND QUEERS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Historically, the San Francisco Bay Area has been home to thousands of LGBTQIA+ Jews, many of whom have been engaged in important efforts that have impacted Jewish and non-Jewish communities in the region and beyond.
San Francisco’s unofficial label as the “Gay Capital of the World” is worn by many locals as a badge of honor. The city has long been a cradle of American culture from Bohemians to Beats, hippies to hackers. This urban center has also been a longtime leader in the fight for the human rights of gay, lesbian, transgender, and other queer people, serving as a queer sanctuary of sorts.
Historical giants like Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, have often been the subjects of a well-documented histories highlighting the contributions of queer Jews to San Francisco’s rich tapestry. But lesser known, and arguably just as significant, are the many grassroots organizers and others whose impact has made important contributions to the Jewish and Queer histories of this area as well. This Mapping Jewish San Francisco exhibit and the stories shared herein help to enhance this much larger aspect of the Bay Area history. "Honoring Our Queer Elders" is a showcase chronicling quiet courage and noisy protest, centering a small selection of local heroes and steadfast activists who have dedicated their lives to making a better future for generations to come.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TERM "QUEER"
Throughout this exhibit, we have chosen to refer to people with marginalized identities in terms of gender, sex, and sexuality — more specifically, individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, non-gender conforming, non-sexually conforming, genderqueer, gender expansive, and other related terms — as queer.[1]
Some find this term problematic, in particular those unfamiliar with the academic field of Queer Studies, pre-Millennials, and those not living in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in California, where this label is common. At the same time, it is arguably problematic to group distinct social identities under any umbrella term, whether “queer" or "LGBTQIA+" (or, for that matter, "Jew," a relevant note given that this website focuses on Jewish San Francisco). Some contend that no signifier-linked framework rooted in binaries can ever capture the ambiguity, fluidity, and ever-changing meanings of social identities connected to gender, sex, and sexuality.
We use the term queer in this exhibit for two reasons above all others. First, all of these individuals live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where this term is normalized and typically used.
Second, as explained in the introduction to a prayer book published by Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, Siddur Sha'ar Zahav, "Queer-identified is a label that many people use to describe themselves, aiming to reappropriate a term that once was used only in a derogatory fashion. We recognize that the term may elicit strong feelings. For people who suffered harassment and injury while being called 'queer,' the term may serve to bring back the pain of those times." Using the term queer herein intends to be positive and inclusive, and "recognize[es] that language and identity evolve over time.”[2]
[1] This section is paraphrased from the following source and is being used with the permission of the author: Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Judaisms: A Twenty-First-Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016), 10.
[2] Michael Tyler and Leslie Kane, eds., Siddur Sha’ar Zahav (San Francisco: Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, 2009), viii.