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AIDS

Continued from preceding page

they going to talk about first
with the rabbi? The fact that
they have AIDS? Or the fact
that they're gay?"
So there is a kind of vicious
circle that magnifies the
isolation of Jewish PWAs.
Since most are unaffiliated,
they are outside the reach of
most Jewish services. And
when desperate need drives
some back to the Jewish corn-
munity, the issue of homosex-
uality tends to get in the way
of the non-judgmental sup-.
port they crave.
"It's sometimes hard for
people to separate the issue of
AIDS from the issue of
homosexuality," Green says.
"But sometimes you have to,
in order to say that it's a
Jewish obligation to care for
people — especially when
there's no cure. If you have a
lot of problems with the
gayness issue, you should still
be able to provide that care.
It's important that Jews don't
ignore the fact that nice
Jewish boys have AIDS — and
some nice Jewish girls, too."
After he came out, David
Green did what many , gay
Jews do — he found a gay and
lesbian synagogue, Bet
Mishpachah.
"I found that there was this
organization that had both of
the parts of my identity that
I felt most positively about —
my gayness and my
Jewishness," he says. "When
I heard about Bet
Mishpachah, I had funny vi-
sions about what these people
would be like. But of course,
they were very ordinary peo-
ple."
But if the gay and lesbian
synagogues provide a comfor-
table environment for gay
Jews, they also help reinforce
the wall between the Jewish
community and its members
affected by the AIDS
epidemic.
"The gay and lesbian
synagogues are a double-
edged sword," says Rabbi
Edelheit. "The more I know
them, I understand that they
isolate themselves because
we don't really want them. If
you put a gay couple into our
synagogue and say, 'we
welcome you that's fine —
until they start acting like a
heterosexual couple. We're
very pained by that."
But the existence of gay and
lesbian synagogues, Eidelheit
suggests, allows the Jewish
establishment to avoid con-
fronting the epidemic direct-
ly and avoid dealing with the
issue of homophobia in the
Jewish community.
For Jewish PWAs, another
point of friction is the percep-
tion that Jewish groups that
actively support a wide range
of civil rights and social

justice concerns, many involv-
ing the needs of non-Jews,
still shy away from the issue
of Jews with AIDS.
Dan Najjar, founder and
director of the National
Jewish AIDS project, puts it
in stark terms. "I've seen the
Jewish community reach out
to those in need, even when
the people in need weren't
Jews. And we're providing
millions of dollars for Jews in
the Soviet Union who we've
never seen — but we have a
problem with people right
here who are suffering with
AIDS. This has to change."
David Green echoes these
sentiments. "I think it's a
shame the Jewish groups

'People need to
see walking,
talking,
functioning people
with AIDS; in a
way, that's one of
the things I'm
trying to do.

have lagged behind," he says.
"I knew people who went to
see the quilt (the giant pat-
chwork quilt, each square
containing the name of a per-
son who died of AIDS). There
were booths there for a
number of religious groups.
And people asked: 'where are
the Jews?' That's a good ques-
tion."
Rabbi Joseph Levine, who
serves on the Union of
American Hebrew Congrega-
tions' task force on AIDS, sug-
gests that the question of the
Jewish response to AIDS is
more complex.
"You can compare AIDS to
the forest fires at
Yellowstone," he said. "People
said, let it burn itself out, let
nature take its course.' But
they had no idea how much of
a course nature would take.
We have no idea how far this
epidemic may go. The
machinery for coping with it
isn't there; the Jewish corn-
munity isn't geared up for the
kinds of support systems that
might be required. It's still
not even clear what systems
those might be."
Levine sees a Jewish com-
munity that is struggling to
cope with a very confusing,
troubling situation. "I'm
tired of people pointing
fingers:' he says.
As a person with a personal
stake in the Jewish communi-
ty's response to AIDS, David
Green sees signs of progress.
Recently, he was asked to ap-
pear before a group of teen-
agers from the North
American Federation of Tern-

