Torah Queeries attempts to be a broader study of the Five Books of Moses, with discussion of every Torah portion, rather than just those that might be particularly difficult or inspiring to LGBT Jews.
This book, an indispensable resource for all teachers and learners of Torah, in the best way possible makes queers of us all.
While the CJM invites artists to interpret the weeks Torah portions, Torah Queeries invites LGBT individuals and allies to do so. Both should be celebrated and embraced for their creativity, innovation, and depth.
The goal of the book is to bring a new set of voices to Torah.
The Rabbinic oft-name for Torah (Learning) is (Reading) which carries the root (call), thus seeding the scriputural charge, (interpret me). Sixty briskly written, argumentative, apologetic, slightly political commentaries successfully do so in the spirit of religious freedom and equalitarian (sic)tolerance.
The tone of the commentaries varies greatly: some are scholarly treatises drawing heavily on rabbinic sources, some are sociological or biological studies, while others are deeply moving personal essays. The book includes bibliographical references and an index. Highly recommended for all libraries.
The point of all these essays is to make us question ourselves and our assumptions and in this purpose, they succeed. . .these authors offer insights into the Torah text that can speak to everyone, regardless of their gender identity.
With Torah Queeries, no longer is the LGBT community an outsider in the Bible...[This volume is] a must for the Jewish bookshelf.
Rabbi Joshua Lesser . . . believes it is time for LGBT people to move beyond simply defending their identities from biblically based attacks. As one of the three editors of Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, he hopes to push such discussions to a new, more complex level.
Rabbi Rebecca T. Alpert,author of Whose Torah? A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism:
This unique and lively work blends the traditional Jewish format of dividing Torah into weekly portions with specifically queer perspectives on them. Torah Queeries unveils a new queer Jewish way to understand this most sacred and central text that will surely stimulate and challenge the reader.
Daniel Boyarin,author of Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture:
Provides a challenge to readers and preachers who are single-mindedly devoted to the straight and narrow.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum,Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, New York:
Gives engaged, pertinent, GLBT-focused meaning to the Tanach. The analyses offered here work to break boundaries, queer-ing, celebrating, and re-creating our Jewish texts and traditions in meaningful ways. These acts of reading become the radical movement of making a space for GLBT Jews that is clever, humorous, loving, and thought-provoking.
