Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School

Hineini (Hebrew for "here I am") follows high school student Shulamit Izen's efforts to establish a gay/straight alliance at the New Jewish High School of Greater Boston (nicknamed "New Jew").

Synagogues working to be more open to gays

The newsletter sent out last month by Temple Israel of New Rochelle contained the usual sort of announcements, including a reminder about the synagogue’s upcoming Purim carnival, mazal tovs and condolences, and nformation about a social event at a local steakhouse. But a small notice about a screening of the film “Hineini: Coming Out In a Jewish High School” reflected a quiet change at the Reform synagogue in suburban New York.

‘Hineini’ Released on DVD Boston Release Party Brings About 75 to Club Café

At the official release on Sunday, Sept. 21 in Boston of the ground-breaking documentary “Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School” on DVD, and a companion curriculum, some 75 local rabbis, educators, and supporters gathered to see film star Shulamit Izen, director Irena Fayngold, and take in a performance by local folk-pop artist Catie Curtis.

DVD release for groundbreaking documentary about Jewish LGBT youth

In 2005 the film Hineini, a documentary about a student at a Boston Jewish day school trying to start a gay/straight alliance (GSA), helped jumpstart a debate on LGBT inclusion in Jewish schools and communities. The film, a collaboration between the Boston-based LGBT Jewish advocacy group Keshet and filmmaker Irena Fayngold, became a powerful teaching tool for Keshet, which has sponsored screenings at schools and synagogues across the country.

Training educators, rabbis to welcome, affirm gay Jews

Unwittingly, these educators and leaders may be excluding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) Jews from the conversation, the curriculum, and even the institution. Questions and comments like these can make GLBT Jews uncomfortable, and they may see them as disrespectful and upsetting.

Educators learn ways to welcome GLBT Jews into the community

Let’s say you get a memo from work, a Jewish organization, instructing you to leave home any part of your identity that doesn’t conform to Jewish tradition. Sure, there’s room for interpretation. But let’s just say you’re gay. Or lesbian. Or transsexual. And you’re pretty sure you get the subtext. Then what?

Keshet goes from local org to national force

Grassroots organization promotes GLBT inclusion within Jewish community.

Keshet Is In Demand

Back in 2005 Keshet was a small Jamaica Plain-based organization focused on advocating for LGBT inclusion within the Jewish community in the Boston area; its executive director, Idit Klein, was the organization’s lone full time employee. That year Keshet, working with director Irena Fayngold, released a documentary film, Hineini, chronicling the experience of a girl coming out as a lesbian at a Jewish school in Waltham and trying to organize a gay/straight alliance.

Synagogue Reaches Out to GLBT Community

Barbara and Alan Sidman of Salem are the proud parents of a gay son who lives in New York. They hope some day that Michael will return to the North Shore and make it his home, but they believe that the chances are slim. One of the problems, in their opinion, is that the North Shore Jewish community is not particularly welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) singles and families.

Massachusetts Gay Marriage to Remain Legal

BOSTON, June 14 -- Same-sex marriage will continue to be legal in Massachusetts, after proponents in both houses won a pitched months long battle on Thursday to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School

Despite the Torah’s provision about homosexuality being “an abomination before the Law,” self-assured lesbian teen Shulamit Izen bravely discloses the truth about her sexuality to the disapproving student body of The New Jewish High School of Boston in a bold attempt to form a Gay-Straight Alliance at the school.

Screening Stimulates Discussion on Gay Issues

Officials at Gratz College hoped that screening a film about a teen girl’s struggle to reconcile her homosexuality with Judaism, while also challenging her high school to become a more welcoming place, might prompt some discussion and send a message that the Melrose Park campus is an open environment for Jews of diverse backgrounds.

Gay Jews Connect Their Experience To Story of Purim

As a child, Idit Klein celebrated Purim by wearing homemade gowns and tiaras to play the beautiful Queen Esther. She fantasized about how she, like the heroine who bravely confessed her faith to save her fellow Jews in ancient Persia, could have somehow rescued her relatives from the Holocaust.

Support for gay rights at State House rally

Review of Hineini: Coming Out in Jewish High School and Trembling Before G-d

The beginning of reconciliation for these two seemingly separate worlds is highlighted in the independent documentaries Trembling Before G-d and Hineini: Coming Out in Jewish High School. Both films tackle the inner conflict of Jews who desperately want to be openly LGBT and religious, without being shunned.

Jewish by Osmosis: Highlights from the 26th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

How does an atheist goy come to say thank God for the 26th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival?

Film on gay Jewish student shown at State House event

State legislators viewed “Hineini,” a documentary on a gay student’s “coming out” at a Boston area Jewish day school, and discussed the film with the student, Shulamit Izen, and the filmmakers at a special screening at the State House last week.

No More Closets: Coming Out in a Jewish High School

Filmmaker Irena Fayngold explores the tension between religious belief and sexual identity through the eyes of a teenager coming of age in the modern world in her film Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School

Irena Fayngold’s Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School tells the story of Shula’s determination to establish a Gay- Straight Alliance at the New Jewish High School (now the Gann Academy), a private pluralistic religious school in Waltham, Massachusetts. But it also tells the bigger story of what it means to be gay and Jewish in modern times and how to reconcile one’s sexual identity with a religion that calls homosexuality an abomination.

Coming out in high school: Film aims to help give voice to religious gay students

When Shula Izen plaintively wondered if it’s possible to be Jewish and gay and remain holy in the film Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School, the moment rang true for many attending the sold-out Sunday afternoon screening at the Washington Jewish Film Festival at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center.