Congregation Or Chadash
Encyclopedia
Congregation Or Chadash (Hebrew for "New Light") is a Reform
Reform Judaism (North America)
Reform Judaism is the largest denomination of American Jews today. With an estimated 1.5 million members, it also accounts for the largest number of Jews affiliated with Progressive Judaism worldwide.- Reform Jewish theology :Rabbi W...

 LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

-oriented congregation in the Edgewater
Edgewater, Chicago
Edgewater is a lakefront community area in the North Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois seven miles north of the Loop. As one of Chicago’s 77 official community areas, Edgewater is bounded by Foster Avenue on the south, Devon Avenue on the north, Ravenswood Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan...

 neighborhood of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. It was founded in 1975 as a gay support group for Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, and was holding religious services by 1976. It moved into its first building, a former Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 church on West Barry Avenue in 1977, and hired its first permanent rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

, Suzanne Griffel, in 1997.

Griffel was succeeded as rabbi by Larry Edwards, and Or Chadash moved to its current location, which it shares with another synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

 and a Jewish day school
Jewish day school
A Jewish day school is a modern Jewish educational institution that is designed to provide Jewish children with both a Jewish and a secular education in one school on a full time basis, hence its name of "day school" meaning a school that the students attend for an entire day and not on a part time...

, in 2003. In October, 2010,
Or Chadash was thought to be one of the two synagogues targeted in the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot. , Edwards remains the rabbi; the congregation's cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

 is Judith Golden.

Early history

Or Chadash was founded in Chicago in 1975 as a gay support group for Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

. The organization was initially called simply "The Jewish Group". It held its first religious services in January 1976, and adopted its current name in April of that year. The congregation remains geared to needs of LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 Jews.

According to J. Gordon Melton
J. Gordon Melton
John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara...

, at the time of its founding there were four other gay synagogues in the United States, in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, Miami, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

. Or Chadash and the other gay congregations faced significant opposition from others in the Jewish community, which had, Melton writes, "traditionally abhorred homosexuality because of the admonition to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28), and the unequivocal denunciation of homosexuality in the Torah (Lev. 20:13)".

Rabbis

Originally established as a member-led congregation,
Or Chadash briefly had a rabbi for a few months in the 1980s. The rabbi had asked if he could temporarily lead the group, but was not replaced after he left. In 1997, the congregation hired its first permanent rabbi, the 35-year-old Suzanne Griffel. She had previously been director and rabbi of a Hillel
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, working with thousands of college students globally...

 branch at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. It was the first time a Chicago gay/lesbian synagogue had hired a rabbi, and the first time any American mostly gay synagogue had hired a straight rabbi. At the time, the synagogue had 120 members.

Griffel was succeeded as rabbi of Or Chadash by Laurence "Larry" Edwards, who was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Prior to joining Congregation Or Chadash, Edwards served for 22 years as a director of Hillel branches at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 and Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

.

Buildings

In 1977, the congregation moved into the Second Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 Church building at 656 West Barry Avenue, from which it operated for over two decades. The congregation moved in 2003 to 5959 North Sheridan Road, a building which it shares with another synagogue, the Emanuel Congregation, and the Chicago Jewish Day School
Jewish day school
A Jewish day school is a modern Jewish educational institution that is designed to provide Jewish children with both a Jewish and a secular education in one school on a full time basis, hence its name of "day school" meaning a school that the students attend for an entire day and not on a part time...

, a school for children from kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

 through 7th grade.

Events since 2005

Or Chadash was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2006.

On October 10, 2010,
Or Chadash was notified that its synagogue was one of the addresses on the packages in the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot. Rabbi Edwards said "We're rather puzzled at how a little congregation like ours would get on the radar as a target for somebody". Because Or Chadash is so small, Edwards surmised that it had been targeted at random, or because it is mostly gay. The website of Emanuel Congregation, which shares space with Congregation Or Chadash, was recently visited 83 times in one day by someone in Egypt, according to Emanuel's website administrator. However, intelligence officials are reported to believe that the synagogues were not actual targets and that the bombs were intended to detonate while still on board airplanes. According to CNN.com, on November 3, Or Chadash co-president Lilli Kornblum "said that despite earlier reports, an FBI agent informed her that her synagogue was not one of the intended destinations in the foiled bomb plot that originated in Yemen."

Later reports indicated that one of the bombs had been addressed to Or
Chadashs former location on West Barry, and the other to an inactive Orthodox synagogue, also in Chicago. Investigators believed that the bombers "...used an outdated directory of Chicago Jewish institutions that is still available on the Internet." Robert Pape, a University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 professor who has studied terrorist groups, believed that the synagogues were a backup plan, had the bombs not detonated mid-flight. The packages would have been delivered on the Jewish Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

.

, Or Chadash is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism
Union for Reform Judaism
The Union for Reform Judaism , formerly known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations , is an organization which supports Reform Jewish congregations in North America. The current President is Rabbi Eric H...

 and the World Congress of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Jews. Edwards is the rabbi, and the cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

is Judith Golden.

External links

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