Community Pride Service

Many people have long considered the word "Queer" only as a pejorative term, a way of marginalizing anyone who is Gay, Lesbian, or Bi, or who in any way does not conform to traditional gender expression. "Queer" has been reclaimed politically, however, and the liberating power of the word has a redemptive power that can serve all of us. Come celebrate LGBTQ Pride and get your Queer on!

Rabbi David Dunn Bauer serves as Director of Social Justice Programming for Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in NYC, the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue.  Rabbi Bauer brings to his work over 20 years of professional theater experience, nine years in the congregational rabbinate, and 20 years of yoga practice, as well as academic study on sexuality and spirituality and many years of work as a touch healer. He earned his B.A. in Theatre Studies and English Literature at Yale University, studied Talmud at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and received his rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In 2011 he became the first Jew to earn the Certificate in Sexuality and Religion from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, writing on “Blessings for the Erotic Body” and “Jewish Queer Sexual Ethics.” He was voted one of the Hottest Rabbis of 2013 by Jewrotica.com and was profiled in Tablet Magazine for his work in Queer Spiritual Counseling.