Rabbi Denise Eger
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Rabbi Denise Eger was the first lesbian — and only the third woman — ever elected president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She’ll be speaking at Congregation Beth El Binah’s Pride Shabbat service on Friday, June 13.
Eger served as the spiritual leader of West Hollywood’s LGBTQ synagogue, Kol Ami, from the time of its founding in the early 1990s until her retirement. She now lives in Austin where her wife serves as the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom.
During the pandemic, Eger, with the Rev. Neil Thomas of Dallas’ Cathedral of Hope, wrote a book entitled Seven Principles for Living Bravely: Ageless Wisdom and Comforting Faith for Weathering Life’s Most Difficult Times. Eger said her friendship with Thomas began while she was at Kol Ami and Thomas was the head pastor at Founders MCC in Los Angeles. It was a friendship based on their long history of working on social justice issues together.
“Troy Perry introduced us,” Eger said, adding that the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches told her, “You two are going to be great friends.”
Thomas said, “I’ve known her since the day I arrived in the United States,” recalling that Perry picked him up at the airport then told him, “This is the first stop.” That first stop was at Kol Ami, and Thomas and Eger made an instant connection.
Together they founded California Faith for Equality in 2006 to fight Proposition 8. That organization continues to this day as a part of Equality California, aiming to educate and mobilize the state’s faith communities to promote LGBTQ equality and safeguard religious freedom.
Because of their close relationship, Thomas said, he and Eger were often referred to as husband and wife.
Their book is born out of their respect for the ways in which they differ. During the pandemic, they discussed via Zoom the various topics they’d cover in the book.
“We talked about co-mingling our voices,” Thomas said. “We decided to write individual chapters in our own faith traditions,” respecting each other’s traditions.
“We each wrote authentically from our own perspectives,” Eger agreed, adding that each perspective is clearly covered and not what she called “Judeo-Christian mush.”
Becoming a rabbi
Los Angeles’ first LGBTQ synagogue was founded, Eger said, after the Rev. Troy Perry founded Metropolitan Community Church in L.A. in 1968. A number of Jews attended Perry’s new church because, at the time, it was the only place of worship where they were welcomed.
“There used to be a drop-in group,” Eger said. “One night, 12 people attended, and they were all Jewish. They said, ‘I think we need to form a synagogue.’”
Perry facilitated that happening. He knew the regional director of the Union for Reform Judaism and connected him with the group to help them form their own temple. That congregation was first known as Metropolitan Community Temple and is now known as BCC, an acronym for Beth Chayim Chadashim or House of New Life. Eger later became its rabbi.
Eger talked about what inspired her to become a rabbi.
“My family was very Jewish,” she said. Raised in Memphis, she said, “We were synagogue-goers.” She was very involved in synagogue life and became a song leader and later a music teacher in temple. She majored in religious studies at USC and decided to become a rabbi with a guitar.
“I had a calling that I was going to serve,” she said. “But then, I didn’t get a position when I was ordained.”
Her ordination happened in the late 1980s, before someone could be ordained and gay. She was a finalist for a number of positions around the country, but then “they found out ‘you’re gay,’ and I was told, ‘We can’t hire you.’”
Later that year, the rabbi at BCC gave her notice, giving Eger the chance to become rabbi of an LGBTQ synagogue at the height of the AIDS crisis.
“What do rabbis learn to do?” she asked. “Take care of your people and be an advocate for people who have no voice. I became an activist.”
Her description of her experience in L.A. mirrored what happened in Dallas at Parkland Hospital. She recalled picking up trays that had been left outside hospital rooms and feeding patients who were too weak to feed themselves.
“To be 28 years old and bury all the gay Jews in L.A. ….” she said of the experience.
Installation
Fast-forward to her installation as president of the CCAR, the organization for Reform rabbis in North America, the liberal movement among American Jews. First the good news: “There was no pushback from the Reform movement or Reform rabbinate,” she said.
But she noted that when Gene Robinson, who is gay, was named bishop of the Episcopal Church in 2003, “he was wearing a Kevlar vest because he had so many death threats. The risks he took, he took for all of us.”
When Eger was installed during the CCAR convention at a service held on a Monday morning, there was a mention in the press of where she was meeting her son. That led to death threats targeting the rabbi.
“So, I had a bodyguard with me the entire convention,” she said. But, she added, that was nothing new really: “I’ve had death threats my entire career.”
Thomas said of Eger’s term in office as CCAR president — which he witnessed first-hand — that his friend “did an amazing job.” Her biggest impact, he suggested, may have been on the other movements in Judaism, especially Conservative Judaism.
“Her leadership helped move the Conservative Movement,” forward in areas of acceptance of marriage equality and ordination of women, Thomas said.
Retired
After retiring from Kol Ami and moving to Austin, Eger became executive director of A Wider Bridge, which is focused on building strong relationships between LGBTQ groups in Israel and North America. It was founded in 2010 in response to a shooting at the LGBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv — a place, it should be noted, where LGBTQ Palestinians, Bedouins, Druids, Christians and others were always welcome.
The organization also fights anti-Semitism around the world along with other organizations.
“There’s vile hatred out there online” Eger noted, calling the hatred boiling now against the Jewish and LGBTQ communities the worst since the 1930s.
Was Texas politics a shock after living in California for so long? Well, “Yes and no,” she said. “What’s a shock is that lack of resources to fight for real equality.”
Rabbi Eger will be speaking at Congregation Beth El Binah, 11211 Preston Road at Northaven Church at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 13. The temple will be celebrating the ancient biblical holiday of Gay Pride Shabbat. Everyone is welcome. Park in the north parking lot.