Poland Gets First Openly Gay Rabbi

The Associated Press profiles Aaron Katz, Poland’s first openly gay rabbi, whose achievement has some Jews asking whether the country is ready for such a trailblazer.

Katz, 53, serves Beit Warszawa,  a Reform congregation in Warsaw. He lives in the capital city’s historic Jewish district with Kevin Gleason, a former Hollywood producer with whom he entered into a domestic partnership in Los Angeles two years ago. The couple, who consider themselves married, moved to Warsaw in March.

Katz, who has opened his home to the community, said he has not faced discrimination or homophobia in Poland, an overwhelmingly Catholic country where leading politicians have publicly declared antigay views in recent years. However, some community members privately told the AP that they worried their community, its size decimated by the Holocaust, remained too “fragile” to sustain any potential controversy.

Born in Argentina to parents who fled the Holocaust in Poland, Katz has five children from a previous marriage to a woman when he was an Orthodox rabbi in Sweden. Read Original

By Julie Bolcer