Guest Speaker Idit Klein's Pride Message - Shabbat Korach, 2025
“At the 20th anniversary celebration of marriage equality in Boston last year, we heard from Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney who won the case. She said to us, “We took what was unimaginable and we turned it into a joyous reality,” which, of course, is beautifully true. But what I think is even more extraordinary is that we took what was unimaginable and we turned it into an ordinary reality.
How many of you have kids in your lives who cannot imagine a world without marriage equality?
All right, I know you’re out there, even though you’re not raising your hands – or a world without openly trans people in their lives, or a world without an LGBTQ affirming Rabbi? For them, these are simply ordinary realities. It’s unimaginable that life was ever any other way.
I will be stepping down as CEO of Keshet on July 31, and as I reflect on my life after that, when I will no longer be a professional queer Jew, I ask myself: “What vision of justice today feels beyond my collective imagination – feels beyond our collective imagination – yet, in 20 years, might just become the ordinary reality of our world. Ask yourself, What feels unattainable, what feels impossible to imagine changing today, yet in another generation, we won’t be able to imagine that was ever any different.I hope you will join me in keeping seizing the unimaginable and transforming it into an ordinary reality. Just think how glorious that will be.“
Idit Klein, founding CEO of Keshet, gave this talk on Friday, June 27 / 2 Tamuz. Watch her full talk above.
Idit Klein is a national leader for social change with more than 30 years of experience in the nonprofit justice sector. Since 2001, she has served as the leader of Keshet, the national organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life. Idit built Keshet from a local organization with an annual budget of $42,000 into a national organization with offices in six states and a multi-million dollar budget. Under her leadership, Keshet has mobilized tens of thousands of Jewish leaders to make LGBTQ+ equality a communal value and priority for action. Idit created national community-building programs for queer Jewish teens and organized Jewish communities nationwide to join the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. In addition, she served as the executive producer of Keshet’s documentary film, Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School, which inspired the formation of GSAs in Jewish schools around the country.
Prior to leading Keshet, Idit worked professionally in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement and social justice sector in Israel. She was also a leader in the Israeli LGBTQ community and helped envision the Jerusalem Open House. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University, Idit earned her Master’s in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a focus on social justice education. She serves on the board of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and publishes frequently in the Jewish and LGBTQ press. Idit has been honored by Jewish Women International, the Jewish Women’s Archive, Mayyim Hayyim, Brandeis University’s Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership, and The Forward as one of its “Forward 50,” a list of American Jews who have made enduring contributions to public life. She lives in Boston with her family.
Be in community with CBST at Kabbalat Shabbat services, every Friday at 6:30pm ET, either in person or streaming live on CBST’s website at cbst.org/livestream.
CBST is an LGBTQ+ synagogue for people of all sexual identities and genders and a joyful, spiritual, proud community. All are welcome 🌈✨