As the summer morphs into the month of Elul just before the High Holidays, I will go in and out of the revolving door of Heshbon Nefesh (the accounting of the soul). My fingers will knuckle down on the memory of unyielding bars on gates that have shut me out of Jewish treasures because of the color of my skin. And I cried out, “Open the gate for us!” Pinioned away behind gates, I was pilloried by baseless assumptions honed and polished to perfection, passed from generation to generation. Petach lanu shaar – open the gate for us. This I asked of fellow JOCs. And we have: by creating For Us By Us spaces. How have we done this? Come learn with us.
Hayom yifneh hashemesh yavo, the day is turning, the sun is returning
V’yifneh navoah shearecha, may we now come into your gate
Stacie and Jeff Cook understand commitment. They live it.
Black, Jewish and Queer. These three identities weave the fabric of who I am, but it took a long time to believe that they could exist together.
Lee and Toni Leichtag established the Leichtag Foundation in 1991 following the sale of their business. Lee and Toni were lifelong entrepreneurs with a passion for innovation and for supporting talent. They believed that only with big risk comes big reward. Both born to families in poverty, Toni to a single mother, they strongly believed in helping those most in need and most vulnerable in our community. While they supported many causes, their strongest support was for young children and the elderly, two demographics who particularly lack voice in our society.
Lifelong Baltimoreans, Rabbi George and Alison Wielechowski and their sons, 11-year-old Lennon and 9-year-old Gideon, are more than pursuing the good life in Southern California. Having moved to San Diego more than three years ago, they are fulfilling a lifelong dream.
You would think that as the executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride, Fernando Zweifach López Jr., who uses the pronoun they, has done all the coming out they possibly can. A queer, non-binary individual who has worked for many years on civil rights issues, López also speaks openly and often about their father’s family, Mexican-American migrant workers who tilled the fields of rural California.