As Election Day neared, Jewish New Yorkers found ourselves reduced to one-dimensional characters in a flat, never-changing narrative. That we might live lives as complex as any other New Yorker doesn’t seem to occur to most of the people talking about us, whether those voices are coming from within our community or beyond.
This is in part because so much of the discussion around the election has centered on “safety,” as if that were a single, easily understood, and universally shared concern, especially in the Jewish community.
Trying to force a million New Yorkers into a box labeled “Jewish safety” is both futile and dehumanizing. When you boil people down to just one part of who they are and treat that as the whole of their identity, it harms their sense of safety, rather than protecting it. Essentializing identity reduces people to caricatures in their own lives and contributes to the risks they face.
What’s more, of course, is that there’s also no such thing as the Jewish community. There are many Jewish communities, each with its own philosophies, norms, and cultures. As the saying goes: Two Jews, three opinions.
Living all over the city and drawing on myriad traditions, we aren’t even a monolith in purely religious terms, which range from ultra-Orthodox to atheist. And that’s before you get into the multiple identities every individual carries; for Jews who are LGBTQ, for instance, New York may be the safest place to be, regardless of the results of the mayoral election. Likewise, for Jewish women, Jewish immigrants, the list goes on.
For queer Jews, NYC safety means being whole and undivided
No one should have to check any part of themselves at the door when claiming their own wholeness. The Jewish New Yorker who is queer is as queer as they are Jewish or a New Yorker. Their concerns, challenges, and joys intermingle and cut across all those identities. Like anyone, they want not just to survive the worst that life may bring, but to grow and thrive.
For young queer people in Jewish New York, however, this can be especially fraught. Recent studies have shown that, in the current political atmosphere, American Jews are increasingly afraid to be visibly, publicly Jewish, and LGBTQ youth are increasingly experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Many belong to communities that are traditionally non-accepting of LGBTQ identities or expressions, and survival is their first, most urgent priority. Living in our enormous, almost unimaginably diverse city is often the framework within which their safety can be found, and the foundation on which they can build healthy, joyful lives.
The first step toward seeing the nuanced, vibrant fullness of our communities is to acknowledge that Jewish safety is more than one thing. For me, a queer woman living in Washington Heights, “safety” must always include the freedom to hold my wife’s hand on our way to synagogue, as well as the freedom to come and go from those services without fear of an anti-Jewish hate crime.
My wife and I are fortunate. Out to the world and our loved ones as both Jewish and queer, we’re able to live our lives authentically, out loud. Many young people don’t have that most basic freedom, however, and are at risk for violence and social isolation, as well as for depression, self-harm, and suicide.
JQY director urges Mayor-elect to reflect diverse Jewish voices
Jewish Queer Youth, which I lead as executive director, is the largest direct service provider for Jewish LGBTQ teens and young adults. Our work is centered on equipping Jewish queer youth to survive and, further, empowering them to thrive. Our mission is grounded in a deep understanding of Jewish traditions and best practices in mental health, enabling us to provide critical services and programs for at-risk youth from historically non-accepting communities.
We connect youth to one another, to providers and relevant resources, and to opportunities to see themselves and their own futures. Ask our participants what they need to feel and, in fact, be safe, and they’ll raise challenges I haven't heard mentioned in any of the recent chatter about Jewish safety.
Now, with the election behind us, it’s time to talk differently about safety and how to safeguard it.
At JQY, we seek to give Jewish queer youth the tools they need to be their whole selves, joyfully. We do that in part by modeling the full tapestry of Jewish belonging: JQYers who walk through our doors have diverse life experiences and political perspectives. We celebrate what we have in common, and we learn from those whose opinions differ from our own.
All of us deserve that kind of support, the kind that recognizes who we are, in all our complex glory, and what we actually need to both survive and thrive.
New York should be the same. I hope that Mayor-elect Mamdani appoints a team that reflects the diversity of what it means to be a New Yorker and that welcomes many different Jewish voices and perspectives, even the ones with which I vehemently disagree.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.