Who We Are

I am a queer feminist Jew engaged to be married to Emet, my genderqueer feminist queer Jew partner. I am starting this blog (with the help of Emet, of course!) to detail our engagement and wedding along with our Jewish journey as two queers who are observant.

Emet had moved to Israel in February 2013 to learn Hebrew and more about Judaism. She was living in a town called Ra'anana and living in an absorption center with other new immigrants to Israel. Her roommates were all religious religious women and she was learning a lot from them about Judaism! She tried out the Tel Aviv gay scene but didn't particularly like it. She heard about a gathering in Jerusalem for queer women and decided to try it out, even though it was a 2.5 hour bus ride from Ra'anana.

I was living in Gedera, and I had already decided to go to Pardes in Jerusalem that fall. I felt that it would be a good opportunity to go to the gathering of queer women and make new friends.

I arrived at the gathering and went up to meet and a few others. Another woman was hitting on Emet, and I felt weird about it. Probably because she also was into Emet! Eventually the other woman left and Emet and I hit it off, talking the whole night (except for a brief period of time that a photographer and his groupies came up to talk. But even this worked out well because we got to take our first ever picture together). When it was getting late, I said I was going to go, and Emet walked to the bus stop with me, eventually getting my phone number. The next day, I texted Emet to see if she made it home ok, and we bonded over gay movies and food.

The night we met, May 2013

Somehow, I invited herself over to eat burritos in Ra’anana the next week. After going to a chocolate restaurant for a friend's birthday, we walked to a playground and talked for a long time. Emet even showed off her dance moves, and she was a perfect gentleman.

The following week was Tel Aviv pride, and we met up. While there was a huge party going on, we walked up and down the beach holding hands and kissed as the sun was setting.

While we only saw each other on weekends, we talked extensively during the week. We began to approach our relationship very intentionally. Both of us knew we wanted to get married and be committed to our partners for life. We dated in a similar way of orthodox Jewish couples -- discussing the very important issues at the beginning of the relationship and limiting physical contact. I had read the book I Only Want to Get Married Once by Chana Levitan, which really informed the way I wanted to date, and Emet knew that getting married once was a huge value for her. After discussing very important issues and getting to know each other more and more, we decided to make the commitment to each other. If you want to see how Emet surprised the heck out of me, check out our engagement video!