Pride Shabbat at TBT was collaborative following prior controversy with Calgary Pride Parade

By Holly Shifrah

(AJNews) – Friday, August 22nd Temple B’nai Tikvah (TBT) hosted Calgary’s annual Pride Shabbat. Most cities that celebrate Pride do so during the month of June (commemorating the Stonewall Uprising of June, 1969). According to their website, Calgary Pride chose to shift the Pride Parade and related celebrations to the September long weekend 16 years ago, in hopes of better weather and more tourists. The website has a section devoted to the history of Calgary Pride. And at the bottom of that page, and every section of the site is a land acknowledgement that closes with the words “Working alongside all Nations, Indigenous and non, we strive to create safe spaces where everyone can live openly and authentically.”

But 2025 may go down in history, as far as Calgary’s Jewish 2SLGBTQIA+ community is concerned, as the year the rift between the wider Queer community and Queer Jews was made irrevocably clear. For the first time in a long time TBT’s Pride celebrations did not include walking in the Calgary Pride Parade.

According to TBT Rabbi Mark Glickman, in 2024 representatives from TBT, as well as the Calgary Jewish Federation both had meetings with members of Pride parade leadership to discuss security and political concerns given the tense reality of a Post-October 7th world and how it has influenced the social environment of Queer spaces. Pride leadership was assured that no-one intended to “wrap ourselves in Israeli flags and hijack the important goals of Pride for our own political purposes” and what the Jewish community asked in return, aside from physical security issues, was for “Pride leadership do everything [they] can to make sure that everybody does that.” Rabbi Glickman reported that “Pride Leadership was very good about helping support us with physical security…but they called to the stage at Prince’s Island Park…The Coalition Against Pinkwashing” for a keynote speech. For those unaware, this is a chapter of the same anti-Israel organization responsible for interrupting, and ultimately causing organizers to end early without finishing the route, the 2024 Toronto Pride Parade. Rabbi Glickman described disappointment saying, “I am not foolish enough or naive enough to think that everybody at that parade is going to agree with me about Israel, and yet, there was a commitment made to us that our not politicizing [Pride] for our own purposes was going to be reciprocated to the extent that Pride was able to do so, and instead they called up a group who was clearly bent on making a vehement anti-Israel statement.”

Rabbi Glickman then went on to describe a series of e-mails that received no responses, a “Zoom meeting with some people from Federation…that did not go well at all,” and meetings at which Pride leadership didn’t even show up. “When we called them on it, they essentially said…‘nobody said that on behalf of us. We don’t know how anybody could have said that. That group was perfectly in line with the stated goals of Pride.’” The Rabbi said his attempt to meet, even informally for coffee “just to get together and get to know each other, share a little bit about what we’re feeling, what’s going on” was met with “crickets.” And that was why, after consulting with 2SLGBTQIA+ members of the Temple community, the decision was made not to march in the 2025 parade.

It’s exactly these kinds of disappointments that make an event like Pride Shabbat such a blessing for 2SLGBTQIA+ Jews, who have faced a growing level of hostility from the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community since October 7th. More and more people who live in the intersection of Jewish and Queer have felt pushed out of spaces that for years have emphasized, as does Calgary Pride, creating “safe spaces where everyone can live openly and authentically.” But many Queer Jews report the expectation that they leave important parts of their Jewish identity at the door to be welcomed in those spaces, a dilemma that was the touched on in the Pride Shabbat keynote address. The address was given by Hannah B, a Queer Jewish writer, podcaster, and content creator with a focus on chronic illness/disability, body acceptance, and being Queer and Jewish. They spoke on “what it means to embrace Queer Jewish identity as both a source of pride and an act of sacred resistance.”

Though Pride is often said to have begun as a riot, and has always contained an element of protest, over the decades there’s been ever more celebratory feeling to it. And though the goal is creating, as Rabbi Glickman put it, “a real celebration in a worship context” via the Pride Shabbat service, many Queer Jews undeniably also feel a sense of grief regarding the expectation of so many to hide the Jewish part of themselves, or to perform a very narrow version of what it means to be a “good Jew.” Queer Jewish celebrations, like smashing a glass at a wedding, now typically include acknowledgement of what the community has lost, namely a sense of solidarity, acceptance, and safety in Queer spaces. Hannah B described how Queer Jews not only need to come out as Queer, but as Jewish in the Post October 7th world. They described the ways in which being openly Jewish has come with negative consequences, but the importance of doing it anyway in order to be one’s true and whole self. Hannah B also touched on the importance of being in community with each other face to face; which makes events like Pride Shabbat so wonderful, especially this year with even more emphasis on cross-congregation participation.

This year Rabbi and Cantor Russell G. Jayne of the Beth Tzedec Congregation was asked to co-lead the service with TBT Music Director, Katie Baker, which he called a “great honour.” His husband also participated in the service. Rabbi Jayne said he was “glad that we didn’t run into any sort of potential opposition because I’m a Conservative rabbi, [and] it’s a Reform shul.” He said, “I think it’s a testament to the fact that despite the differences in our community, we are very capable of working together and planning together and achieving something really beautiful together.” But he also acknowledges the pain Queer Jews are feeling, saying “I don’t understand how the Queer community that has been hurt by so many organizations and institutions in this world can act in such a hurtful way to another aspect of the Queer community.” Referring to the growing resistance in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to view complicated issues with nuance and to come together with those they see as different, he remarked that “it’s very important for us as a Jewish community to be able to model that to the Queer community at large. A Reform Jew and a Conservative Jew were able to stand on that bimah together and lead a service that felt authentic and true to both of us…and we were able to sit together with members of the Conservative congregation and the Reform congregation and members of non-Jewish faiths.”

During Rabbi Jayne’s opening remarks to the service he pointed out that “holiness is not found in sameness, but in the wondrous diversity of God’s creation that reflects the ultimate of diversity within unity, the Divine itself.” When interviewed about the event he added the reflection that “I thought that was something that the Queer community at large espoused to. But no, no, when it comes to…condemning Israel, it has to be this way and only this way. But that’s not where holiness is going to be found in the community. The community is only going to find holiness in this area if it allows for a larger conversation. Because again, you are only hurting Queer Jews the same way that society hurt you.” But reflecting the same mingling of grief and celebration, disappointment and hope that was present at the event, he continued by emphasizing how Pride Shabbat was a “coming together to rejoice in…differences and [a reminder]…that what transcends all of these differences [is] our humanity, and the fact that we all have risen out of the same Divine source.”

Holly Shifrah is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter