Taharah and Transgender Jews

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Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips

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Dec 23, 2015, 3:27:20 PM12/23/15
to Jewish Funerals, NAJC-NET, Chaplain Susan J. Katz
Yasher Koakh to Chaplain Susan J. Katz for her sensitive, knowledgeable and practical account of facilitating taharah for a dying transgender Jew:


May we go from strength to strength.

With deep appreciation and many blessings for the seasons ahead,

Regina
 
Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, MSW, MPH
"In cities of diversity...we organize ourselves and our money...
to sustain the poor...and visit the sick...and bury the dead...and comfort the bereaved...
for these are ways of peace." (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Gittin)

Laurie Dinerstein-Kurs

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Dec 24, 2015, 7:44:10 AM12/24/15
to su...@susanjkatz.com, rabbi...@waysofpeace.org, Jewish Funerals, NAJC-NET
I was aware of the spelling inconsistencies when referring to Rebecca/maiden....and consulted a friend, Leo Weinstock (SP?)..a professor of Linguistics.  This is his response:

I cannot be positive, but what this might reflect is that this text in Genesis was written while the language was in transition from the original feminine ending ת- to the ending ה-, which really is just a space filler so that one who is reading an unvocalized text will know to pronounce a vowel in front of the ה-, as you see it in Genesis. The original feminine of נער was נערת, but the final ת- was harder to hear so it sounded as if the sound wasn't there. People just heard the vowel before it. (na'arat became na'ara[t]). After a while people forgot what it came from, but they had to write something, so they used a ה- to differentiate it from נער. I suspect that this text about Rebecca was written before they came up with that device. 

There are four letters that represent vowels: א, ה, ו, י, so in later Hebrew the ה is used to relay the sound of [a] as in "na'ara". These four are called "matres lectionis" or אמות קריאה (mothers of reading). Apparently the manuscript that was used to provide the text as we are seeing it did not yet use the ה.

Leo


An interesting interpretation.

Laurie D-K



From: "Susan J Katz" <su...@susanjkatz.com>
To: rabbi...@waysofpeace.org
Cc: "Jewish Funerals" <jewish-...@googlegroups.com>, "NAJC-NET" <NAJC...@najc.org>, "Chaplain Susan J. Katz" <su...@susanjkatz.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 10:32:55 PM
Subject: [NAJC-list] Re: Taharah and Transgender Jews

Todah Rabbah,

I have a few resources on this topic, if you are interested, please do contact me through my direct email (below),

and indeed, May we all go from strength to strength,

Kol tuv,
...Susan

Ch. 
Susan J Katz, MA
Chaplaincy/Sacred Music
Member NAJC, CASC
*...Please note that I will be away from my email weekly, between Friday
evening and Saturday night...*



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Libby Bottero

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Dec 24, 2015, 6:41:31 PM12/24/15
to jewish-...@googlegroups.com
When I read this article on the list, I was reminded of the Japanese
movie "Departures" (2008?). In the film, a young man is learning to
prepare the deceased, when he discovers that the young woman with a
lovely face whom he is preparing has male genitalia; the decision is
made to honor the way the person lived, as a woman.

Libby


Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips

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Dec 26, 2015, 8:14:11 PM12/26/15
to Jewish Funerals, Daniel Leger
Dear Dan,

Thank you, as well, for all the support you bring to your community (which, a few years back, I was honored to visit and learn with).

I've returned this thread to its original heading here.  Could you clarify what you mean by "It would have been a painful injustice to the family present to have disputed any attributions by those who loved her in the context of whom she had made herself present for those most important to her"?

I agree with Libby Bottero's earlier comment.  I think Susan Katz's chaplaincy intervention reflects the same kind of compassionate, respectful, practical negotiation portrayed in the "Departures" film scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrVARf-NxPQ  

Thanks to Rick Light for first introducing me to "Departures."  May we one day be blessed with a Jewish film equivalent!

The difference is that Susan Katz seems to have been mediating between the patient and a hevra kadisha for whom halakhic definitions of modesty were important.  I very much appreciate her acknowledgement of the strain on the hevra as well as on the dying patient.

May we go from strength to strength.

With many blessings for Shabbat Shalom and beyond,

Regina

Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, MSW, MPH
"In cities of diversity...we organize ourselves and our money...
to sustain the poor...and visit the sick...and bury the dead...and comfort the bereaved...
for these are ways of peace." (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Gittin)

On Fri, Dec 25, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Daniel Leger <del...@verizon.net> wrote:

Dear Regina,

Thanks for pointing this out to me. I’ll do my best to be more attentive to the heading in future.

Thanks for all you do for the community,

L’shalom,

Dan

 

Daniel Leger RN, CPSP

5679 Beacon Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15217

del...@verizon.net

412-422-9078

412-926-4289 

 

 

From: Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips [mailto:rabbi...@waysofpeace.org
Sent: Friday, December 25, 2015 10:04 AM
To: Jewish Funerals <jewish-...@googlegroups.com>; Daniel Leger <del...@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [jewish-funerals] Cremation and Midwifery

 

Dear Dan--

 

Thank you for your thoughts on transgender Jews--but I don't think you're responding to what I posted here on "Cremation and Midwifery."

 

If we keep the threads on this list separate, I think we'll be able to understand each other better.

 

With thanks and many blessings,

 

Regina

 

Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, MSW, MPH

"In cities of diversity...we organize ourselves and our money...

to sustain the poor...and visit the sick...and bury the dead...and comfort the bereaved...

for these are ways of peace." (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Gittin)

 

On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 7:47 PM, Daniel Leger <del...@verizon.net> wrote:

 

Dear Friends,

I am very grateful that this conversation is taking place. I am 67 years old and I now practice as a certified chaplain as well as continuing to practice as a registered nurse after 40 plus years of nursing practice, ten of which as a hospice nurse. And I am a man. That was a near anomaly when I was in nursing school.

I have been around long enough to have witnessed the first ordinations of rabbis who were not men. Now many of us in pluralistic Jewish communities take for granted that Jewish women and persons who are not easily categorized in terms of gender are absolutely accepted not only as active participants in the Jewish community, but also as rabbis. What a remarkable journey this has been. My shehechiyanu grows in depth and breadth.

I am moved by Chaplain Katz’s care and discernment with regard to those individuals she serves. I am impressed with her ability to look to the traditions and texts available from that tradition to honor the people entrusted to her, and I am grateful that the person she tells us about was gently caressed back into the Jewish community and provided with the beautiful traditions we have to support the transition from one world to the next.

And yet I am somewhat discomfited at the solution about which Chaplain Katz informs us. I am very fortunate to be counted as a member of a pluralistic, truly community based chevra kadisha. In a community in which a pluralistic Jews (non- congregational and comprised of members of all denominations and non-denominational members) enact their work, I believe that there are possibilities in addition to the very thoughtful solution which Katz lovingly made possible.

There are a number of us (I for one) who would have absolutely no problem with performing taharah for a person who identifies as primarily male or female. That means that if that person says they are male, the men perform the taharah; and if they say they are female, the women perform the taharah; irrespective of the physical make-up of the person’s genitalia. The journey made by a person who felt so strongly that s/he was one gender or another to consider her/himself as such despite physicality is a painfully difficult one which deserves respect and honor.

To my mind, admittedly a non-rabbinic-non-halachic one, relegating women to the position of those who will do difficult things by default needs to be made a thing of the past. It not only is an insult to transgendered persons today, but also is an insult to women, and relegating men to the mercy of men for certain things and women for certain things needs to be rethought just as it has been rethought in many areas of professional life.

I am reminded of the woman I was called upon to pronounce dead a few years ago. As I entered the home I was escorted to the room in which she lay dead. As I proceeded with the necessary details it became clear to me that the deceased was very much anatomically a male. It would have been a painful injustice to the family present to have disputed any attributions by those who loved her in the context of whom she had made herself present for those most important to her. I believe that in our present time (and I am open to the possibility of further change in the future as change is taking place very rapidly) we must respond to those who call upon us with the most expediently kind best we have available within the values of our wonderful tradition. Not always easy, but ever growing, as are we.

Dan Leger, Pittsburgh

Daniel Leger

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Dec 28, 2015, 9:23:18 PM12/28/15
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Dear Regina,

Thanks for straightening out the conversational threads I seem to have tangled. And thanks for the opportunity to clarify my clumsy prose.

I also am deeply moved by Susan Katz’s sensitive and attentive chaplaincy and one would be fortunate indeed to receive her spiritual care.

The patient to whom I referred was biologically male but identified as female. She was also recognized by those in her family as a woman. I therefore respectfully recognized her as a woman. That’s what I was trying to say.

As a nurse I care for persons respectfully regardless of gender although I needed to attend to certain physical needs related to anatomical characteristics. My work as a nurse and my work as a chaplain have complemented each other in providing both physical and spiritual care. As a member of a pluralistic chevra kadisha these two complementary components of my nurturing work lead me to hope that one day it will be relatively unimportant for men to perform taharah only for men and women for women. I know that this tradition arises from concerns for modesty and potential abuse of male power. I look forward to the day when we will have moved beyond the need to worry about such considerations. I surely hope that a meitah would not be denied taharah if the only people available to perform it were male. I know it has been suggested that in the absence of a chevra kadisha, non-Jewish funeral home staff might say the words and enact the ritual. I think that would be much more problematic than having a group of respectful Jewish men perform taharah for a woman.

Dan Leger, Pittsburgh

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Laurie Kurs

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Dec 28, 2015, 9:24:25 PM12/28/15
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This topic of transgendered Jews was a discussion this past Shabbos  - during the Kiddush repast.
 
Participating were several member of a local women's chevre.  While the discussion did focus on the maita...AND "HER" best interests...there was great discomfort with the idea that the needs of the individual chevre members had no place in the Tahara room.  By that they meant...if the gender listed on the death certificate...  did not match the genetalia...they were not necessarily going to participate in the tahara.  A great deal of energy was spent on what exactly does  a chevre HAVE to do, what does an individual member have to uphold?  It was mentioned that 1) it is possible that when the funeral home picked up the person...transgender was never mentioned.  Now, going by the FIRST name, the assumption that the person has female anatomy, the women's chevre is called.  (If the funeral home does not touch the body-uncover it, etc, they would not know).  At some point during the tahara, the discovery is made of male anatomy... those women uncomfortable and unwilling to continue...walk out.  Can there no be a litmus test for joining chevres that you MUST do whatever - for whomever??? If that were to be the case...what about chevres that wont do Tahara IF the body is to be cremated??
Of course - various scenarios can play out.  Put out a call to see if other women who are willing and can be rallied in a heartbeat.  Call a men's group and see if they can be rallied in a heartbeat.  No tahara.
 
Whether individual attitudes regarding modesty, anatomy, gender, what is perceived as "acceptable" and what is not...are very problematic today...I am of the opinion - 20 years from now...LIKE IT OR NOT - these various issues will no longer be considered issues.......
The generations of today that are finding these to be problems, will give way to generations that don't.
 
 
Laurie D-K
my new e-mail address is rab...@comcast.net
 
 
Sent: Friday, December 25, 2015 at 3:06 PM
From: "Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips" <rabbi...@waysofpeace.org>
To: "Jewish Funerals" <jewish-...@googlegroups.com>, "Daniel Leger" <del...@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [jewish-funerals] Re: [NAJC-list] Re: Taharah and Transgender Jews
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