Samantha Zarin made history when she became the first transgender rabbi in America • On the challenges and reactions in the community: "Eyes are staring at me everywhere," she admits

Samantha Zrin was on her way home from a Yiddish class she taught at the synagogue. She knew that evening, her life was about to change. Shortly afterwards, the 775 members of the Temple with us - El Synagogue received a personal message from her family, a message that has shocked quite a few of the people she knows, since she joined the community three and a half years ago.

"In recent years, Sam has been researching his sexual identity," read a message sent to community members from her marker and partner, Rachel. "For both of us, it was a journey full of self-observation, learning and growth. In this journey, we realized that even though Sam grew up as a boy, he is actually a girl, and she is ready to start living her life as a woman in public."

The email marked the culmination of a long process in Zarin's life - almost a rebirth, from the gender identity in which she grew up, to the full expression of the gender identity that had always resided within her.

The announcement also marked a significant moment for all synagogues in the United States: Rachel Zrin is a fellow rabbi at Temple Emnu-El, a Conservative community in Providence, Rhode Island. Samantha Zrin is the first transgender rabbi in America.

The 33-year-old Yiddish and music teacher, who also writes poetry, has already shaved her beard, lengthened her hair and come out of the closet as a transgender in front of her partner, family and close friends. Now she was also ready to declare herself a rabbi, the partner of many.

"A lot's partner is a very public figure, and everywhere I go in our community, people know who I am," Zarin says. It may be funny to say that people stare at me everywhere, but they really do, whether I go to the gym or the grocery store. "

The rabbi's wife ("quarterback" in Yiddish) has a well-known public role in the Jewish community. Traditionally, the rabbi, the rabbi's wife, not only cooks Shabbat and holiday meals but also teaches lessons and advises women in the community. This situation has changed in the non-Orthodox world, where people of all genders can now become male and female rabbis, but the role of the rabbi's spouse remains an important role, says Shuli Robin Schwartz, historian and incoming president of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

"Rabbis are definitely public figures and sociologically there is also an expectation that they will be a symbol and role model - they are supposed to live by the values ​​that all other people in theory aspire to live by - and often have similar expectations from the rabbi's family," says Schwartz. .

Therefore, Zarin knew that her process of getting out of the closet had to be done carefully. On the one hand, she knew that in the non-Orthodox world, the acceptance of transgender people was becoming more and more common. The Reform movement, the Reconstructive movement, and the Conservative movement have all adopted resolutions that fully support the inclusion of transgender people in Jewish communities over the past five years, and transgender people - like other members of the LGBT community - are seen more and more in leadership positions in synagogues and other community institutions.

On the other hand, Zarin knew that the change she was going through would not just be a private matter, because of the role her family plays in the community.

"When I came out of the closet as a transgender, as a woman, it suddenly meant that one of the rabbis of the community, who is a woman, is now married to a woman, and it's not a trivial matter," she says. "In a sense, when I came out of the closet as a trans, I came out as myself, as a woman, and forced change on my wife as well. Therefore, the change had to be conducted in dialogue with my wife, when we should do it, and also with the synagogue leadership."

In a message sent to community members Zarin shared her new name and said community members "may notice changes in Sam's clothing and appearance." But to maintain their privacy, the couple asked community members not to ask them personal questions or give advice without being asked to do so.

As a rabbinical family, the dividing line between the public and the private is often very thin, but it was important to maintain a certain degree of privacy, says Rachel Zrin.

"The dividing lines between my public and personal life are very different compared to people with other areas of occupation, because many aspects of my family are public," she added. "Before the Corona plague, we hosted people for Shabbat dinner, and part of my role as rabbi in the community is to show what we do in our home, and I accept that, but there are still limits."

Coming out of Samantha Zarin's closet took many years. She grew up as a boy, but never felt attracted to masculine things. Over time, she began to feel uncomfortable with her gender in general. "Throughout my life, everything I said, everything I did, everything I wrote, everything I did in my life was always out of fear that I would be perceived as too feminine," Samantha said.

She never imagined she might be transgender, because the character of a transgender woman who came up with her head was full of stereotypes. "My models for transgender women were characters from the movies who would dress up and dance in secret, and when they found out, it was embarrassing," she recalls. "It was very embarrassing and we were supposed to laugh at them. In the movies men dressed in dresses were meant to be funny."

She began actively questioning her gender two and a half years ago, and last year met with a therapist who specializes in gender identity. The first meeting brought about the change. "She allowed me to admit to myself what I had always been afraid to admit, that I was transgender," Zarin says.

She immediately revealed this to her partner, who supported her, she said. But it took seven months, and constant conversation with the synagogue leadership, until she was ready to send the email to community members.

Until then, Zarin had opened a Twitter and blog account and used a fake female name, Shuli Elisheva. She wrote about her struggle with gender - she wrote songs in Yiddish, a language she speaks fluently and raises her five-year-old son to be a Yiddish speaker.

On the Internet, Zarin was able to find a community with other transgender women. She also found that writing in Yiddish was consistent, on an even deeper level, with the process she was going through, because she felt there was a resemblance between the language and her gender reassignment. "I did not grow up speaking Yiddish. I grew up and heard Yiddish words embedded in English at home, but I never knew it was possible - just as I never knew I could become a woman - I never understood that it was possible to become a Yiddish speaker," she explained.

Writing under a false name allowed her to express herself without worrying about how she would be perceived by others. But that cloak of convenience was removed when she came out of the closet in front of the community.

But her message to synagogue members was positively received by the community and also by members of the wider Jewish community in Providence. A post she wrote on Facebook led to hundreds of likes and comments, all encouraging, from people from around the world and close to home.

"If there is a way we can support our community, please let us know," wrote a member of Temple with us. "see you on Saturday".

Zarin says she was received in a "very, very positive" way.

"I was inundated with support. People really respected our request for privacy," she added.

Rachel Zrin found that there was no basis for her concerns about the community response.

"There were no problems," she says. "I think the anxiety was self-inflicted and the period before coming out of the closet was harder than coming out of the closet, at least for me."

The positive response in the wider Jewish community in Providence included Beit Shalom, a local Orthodox synagogue. The synagogue, which has 100 member families, has about 10 people who have come out of the closet in the last decade, which has helped bring about a change in the opinions of community members.

However, for many community members, coming out of Zarin's closet was their first confrontation with the issue of transgender rights on a personal level, says Rabbi Barry Dollinger. "Many people have had to go through a process of coming to terms with the issue themselves, not on a national or political level, but on a human level. A lot of people, hearts and souls have changed, it's not a problem anymore, it's just a friend," says Dollinger, who emailed Zarin A few days after she came out of the closet to express his support.

At the Temple with Us-El Synagogue where Rachel works, the change her partner went through helped make the synagogue more inclusive, says the community's chief rabbi, Michael Pell. "For years, I think we tried to be an open space that welcomes and welcomes everyone, so I think the community was ready for its announcement - a lot of people said okay," he says. "But I also believe it has increased the desire in our community to re-examine the issue of services and accessibility in our building."

Although Amnu-El has services of a neutral gender, the leadership is working to add services designed for those who do not feel comfortable entering the services of women or men - something that was previously true of Samantha Zrin.

Zarin says that making online contact with other trans women has changed her, as she has seen how through hormonal therapy they have managed to look feminine. She now hopes to inspire other people in a similar situation - including rabbis' spouses, from whom she was unable to get advice during her gender reassignment process - and she specifically requested that her pre-gender reassignment photo be posted alongside her photo as it appears today to show For others it is possible.

"If I had known all this twenty years ago, who knows, maybe I would have undergone a sex change twenty years ago," she says. "I never knew there was such a possibility. How can one want something so much and not even know that such a possibility exists?"