Two sessions:

2:10pm – 3:05pm
My Beloved Who is Different: A Millennium of Queer Jewish Poetry
This session uses havruta-style study, a traditional Jewish mode of paired learning, to explore a tradition of homoerotic Jewish poetry stretching from the Middle Ages until the present. Using poems written in Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, Persian, Dutch, Russian, and English, participants in this session will encounter a diversity of voices that articulate the joys and challenges of love in song and word.

4:20pm – 5:15pm
A Rainbow Thread: Forgotten Stories of Queer Jewish Ancestors
This session uses havruta-style study, a traditional Jewish mode of paired learning, to explore stories that can inspire queer Jewish life today. Come discover centuries of hidden history, from a gay brawl in a medieval synagogue to a gender-bending Jewish stowaway in colonial Canada, and from gender transition in a Ukrainian shtetl to gay and lesbian Jewish activists in 1950s America. No previous Hebrew knowledge or Jewish experience necessary.