Thread by @RavBogard

Think trans-folk are new? I'd like to tell you the remarkable story of Berel-Beyle, a Jewish man who transitioned in the shtetel in Ukraine in the 1800s. 🧵#ARainbowThread 1/

But first---go and buy Noam Sienna's incredible work of Torah, "A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969". It's where I'm pulling this text / hashtag, and it is an essential piece of Torah in any Jewish library.
noamsienna.com/rainbowthread/ 2

Before we can tell Berel-Beyle's story, we need to jump to the 1930s and the so-called Nazi Olympics, because the American press was evidently in an absolute tizzy over athletes who kept going over to compete in the women's games, and coming home as men! 3/

One of the people reading about this "whole new trans thing!" was an old Jewish immigrant living in Brooklyn named Yeshaye Kotofsky, who was having none of it with the uproar, and sent a letter (in Yiddish) to the editor of the @jdforward telling the story of Berel-Beyle. 4/

You see, back in Yeshaye's shtetl in Krivozer, "everyone knew Beyle, the girl who sold herring....a tall redhead...sturdily built" who presented as "not quite a woman, but also not quite a man." 5/

Beyle's father--Yeshaya writes--took 'her' to all sorts of rabbis looking for advice on what to do...until Beyle turned 23, left for Odessa, and met a professor who helped Beyle transition to Berel (or "Berel-Beyle", as Yeshaya calls him), and changed his life. 6/

In an powerful affirmation, our friend Yeshaya (writing in the 1930s!) says that when Berel finally returned home, "half the shtetl ran to the bridge to greet her, or better said, to greet *him*." In fact, from this point on, Yeshaya *only* uses he/him pronouns for Berel 7/

So what became of Berel-Bayle? This is where Yeshaye's letter makes me cry. Because in the 1800s, in this Jewish shtetl in Ukraine, the community of Krivozer took Berel in, treated him as a man, and welcomed him home. 8/

The men of the community taught him to lead the prayers (something only men would have been allowed to do then), and they all celebrated together when Berel-Beyle finally married his old girlfriend Rachel, who we are told was "a nice girl." 9/

Yeshaye--and remember, he's writing this in the 1930s, talking about the late 1800s--ends his letter gorgeously: "In our shtetl," he writes, "Berel-Beyle always had a good name as a fine, upstanding Jew." #ARainbowThread 10/10

@PinkRangerLB a copy of this book is the gift I bought for you that's been sitting on my desk for months 🤦

Also: do you have trans/gender expansive/lgbtq+ youth in your life / social circles? Let them know about our new week-long sleep away camp campindigopoint.org!
***we will make it financially possible for any kid who needs camp to be there***