Who is in charge of telling the stories that make up our collective history? As President Donald Trump has entered the White House for his second term and has renewed his efforts to erase LGBTQ folks from public life in the United States through his legislation, the question has weighed on my mind.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way. Growing up as a queer Orthodox Jew, I believed I was the only person like me. I was taught that queerness and Judaism didn’t go together. From a young age, I knew so much about Jewish history and culture — from the hardships our people endured in Egypt to the horrors of the Holocaust. But there was nobody specifically like me in those stories.
“Suffs,” the two-time Tony Award-winning and Grammy-nominated musical, which recently ended its run on Broadway, has a lot to say in response to this question. “Suffs” tells the stories of women who weren’t written into history books at all, and raises questions about who is included — and who storytellers left out — when we pass on history to the next generation.
Jenna Bainbridge — a member of “Suffs”’ original Broadway cast and disability rights advocate — shared on a recent podcast: “Just because you don’t see yourself in history doesn’t mean you weren’t there.” Her words resonated deeply with me and made me realize something I hadn’t considered before: What if we taught our youth to assume they were always part of history, even when the storytellers failed to make them visible?
This inability to see oneself represented in history and the media can have devastating consequences, which is why increasing the visibility and representation of LGBTQ people, both Jewish and not, is so important. It’s even more critical following President Trump’s Day One executive order limiting the federal government’s definition of gender and renewed efforts across the country to pass so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.
The more I learn about the stories of queer people throughout Jewish history, the easier it becomes to see myself in the broader narrative of Jewish resilience, survival and joy. I love telling people about Eve Adams, a courageous Jewish lesbian from Poland who ran a safe haven for queer individuals at a time when such spaces were rare and often targeted. We should be talking about heroes like Frieda Belinfante, a Jewish lesbian Dutch cellist, conductor and resistance fighter during World War II.
What if, in addition to boosting representation, we taught our youth to see themselves in the spaces that historically excluded them? The truth is that we were always there. It’s just that the loudest voices in history chose to leave us out of their telling of history.
But I’ve learned that the loudest voices are often only that — loud. Just because they shout over the rest of us doesn’t mean they’re the only ones who should be heard. When we teach our youth to assume their representation, we challenge the historical erasure of not only queer Jews but of all marginalized communities. We also enable our youth to see themselves as vital parts of our ongoing story, regardless of the gaps in the narrative.
For some, assuming representation despite a lack of visibility might seem threatening. It forces everyone — especially those whose stories are told — to reexamine those familiar stories and reconsider whose voices get heard. But for queer Jewish youth, this approach is a lifeline. It teaches them that they are never alone, no matter how invisible they may feel. It reminds them that they are powerful beyond their wildest dreams and that they belong in the universal Jewish story and in the universal queer story — both now and throughout history.
Teaching others to assume representation while boosting visibility is integral to a two-pronged approach to building strong collective self-esteem. It challenges the status quo and demands that we see ourselves, even when the world tells us we don’t belong.
It’s time to stop waiting for others to tell our stories and to start assuming our rightful place in history. Because we’ve always been here, even when the world didn’t want us to be.
