How the self-declared “Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews” learned to shout her sexuality from the rooftops
There was no question about it anymore: I was as gay as anyone could be and I wouldn’t have changed that fact for the world.
By Rossi for LGBTQ Nation –
In honor of Women’s History Month, LGBTQ Nation is highlighting some of the many incredible LGBTQ+ women of both the past and present, women who overcame unimaginable obstacles to change the world.
The following are two excerpts from “The Punk Rock Queen of the Jews” by Rossi, courtesy of Books Forward.
Harriet wanted to raise her three 1960s children with values she’d internalized in the 1930s. She wanted her kinderlach to have as few goyish friends as possible, hoped that her daughters would marry Jewish doctors or lawyers and that her son would become the doctor or lawyer other mothers wanted their daughters to marry. Her children were expected to provide as many Jewish grandchildren as possible. Harriet might accept small deviations from her plan, but she drew the line at even the hint of intermarriage. She was convinced that the Messiah might one day sprout from one of her children and had no intention of allowing the line to be poisoned with Christian blood.
The moment we could understand English, she taught us a bedtime prayer, drumming it into us like an army sergeant. No one was permitted to go to sleep without reciting it: “I pledge allegiance to the Torah, and to the Jewish people. I promise to live a good Jewish life and marry a nice Jewish boy” (or, in Mendel’s case, “girl”).
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