For more than three decades, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum has been a guiding light for the nation’s largest LGBTQ synagogue, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in midtown Manhattan. Her tenure has seen the community through significant milestones and challenges, from the AIDS crisis and the murder of Matthew Shepard to the historic civil-rights advances like marriage equality and the recent backlash against transgender rights. Now, after 32 years, Rabbi Kleinbaum is stepping down and heading into retirement, leaving the synagogue to navigate its future without the leader who has defined it for so long.
Kleinbaum’s retirement comes at a critical juncture for the LGBTQ-rights movement. While same-sex marriage is legal nationwide, conservative politicians are enacting restrictions on transgender healthcare, limiting LGBTQ curriculum in schools, and proposing bans on drag queen performances. Despite these challenges, Kleinbaum remains optimistic about the future. “I’ve been blessed and privileged to have the opportunity to use the gifts I have, on behalf of God’s vision for the world,” she said in an interview. “I just feel like now is the time to make room for a younger generation.”
Throughout her career, Kleinbaum has been embraced by her congregation and left-leaning politicians alike. At 65, she has taught an unapologetically progressive vision for Judaism that resonated far beyond Manhattan and liberal Judaism. When Donald Trump was elected president, Kleinbaum led the synagogue in outreach efforts to Muslims and established an immigration clinic to help LGBTQ refugees seek asylum in the U.S. “It is a religious calling to help the immigrant. I see that it is just as deeply important for the synagogue as it is leading Friday night services,” she said.
CBST, which has roughly 1,000 paying members, sees about 4,000 Jews, from nonreligious to Orthodox, attend its High Holy Day services, historically held at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. The temple’s regular congregants have included notable figures like Edie Windsor, who successfully sued to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, Andy Cohen of “Real Housewives” fame, and Joan Rivers. Kleinbaum’s wife, Randi Weingarten, is the head of the nation’s largest teachers union.
Appointed in 1992, Kleinbaum’s early years were marked by the AIDS crisis, during which she spent much of her time burying members of her congregation. The need for a salaried rabbi to provide pastoral care was a significant reason for CBST to hire its first rabbi. One of her first funeral services was for a member of the search committee that hired her. The 1990s also saw increased visibility for gay and lesbian individuals, but it was a time of significant challenges, including the passage of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
“She really was doing rabbinical triage work at the beginning, working with a community that ultimately saw a third of its members die of AIDS,” said William Hibsher, a longtime member of CBST. Hibsher, who was not an observant Jew in the early 1990s, was inspired by Kleinbaum’s work and the care she provided to his partner, who died from AIDS in the mid-1990s. He later became heavily involved with the synagogue, serving on its board of directors and helping to raise millions for its current location on West 30th Street.
When New York legalized same-sex marriage in 2013, Kleinbaum performed same-sex weddings outdoors in the park across the street from the marriage bureau. Among the couples she married in 2014 were two men who had spent 20 months planning their wedding, which was held in a former Broadway theater.
Kleinbaum hasn’t specified her plans for retirement but indicated she might continue with social justice work or Democratic politics. CBST has given her the title of “senior rabbi emerita” to maintain a level of connectedness as she steps down, but the bimah at CBST will no longer be hers.
Even those who might be considered her ideological adversaries have found common ground with her on issues of religious freedom and human rights. When President Joe Biden appointed Kleinbaum to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, she served alongside Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, which opposes the LGBTQ-rights movement. “She’s able to step back and see where two with strong ideological differences can meet on core issues, and realize here’s where we can find common ground,” said Fred Davie, an administrator at Union Theological Seminary and a longtime friend of Kleinbaum.
Kleinbaum served two terms on the USCIRF, with her first term ending early in 2020 to focus on her congregation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For her and the congregation, it was familiar territory after the AIDS crisis. “We knew immediately many of the elements that we had to deal with: isolation, loneliness, fear,” Kleinbaum said. “There were differences, of course, between AIDS, but many things were enough similar that it almost felt like muscle memory.”
As CBST looks to the future, there is a sense of uncertainty about what the synagogue will be without Kleinbaum. The congregation, like many others, skews toward older members, many of whom have been with Kleinbaum since the beginning. The synagogue named Jason Klein as the new chief rabbi earlier this year, and he will start on July 1. However, the consensus among members is that Kleinbaum is irreplaceable. “I think people, in their heart of hearts, wanted to find a Kleinbaum 2.0 to replace her,” Hibsher said. “There’s a landscape of wonderful progressive synagogues throughout Manhattan. So part of the question for the congregation will be: Is there a need for an LGBT synagogue in the year 2024? I think there is.”
While Kleinbaum laid out her plans to leave CBST a year ago, there were audible gasps at Yom Kippur services last September when it was mentioned that CBST would no longer be headed by her. Her second-to-last Shabbat service, held on June 21, was a sold-out event with New York Attorney General Letitia James as the keynote speaker. “Most importantly, she has given us a space,” James said, pointing to the synagogue and its standing-room-only crowd. “This space. Where we can be safe. Where we can be free.”
Source: The Associated Press
