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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/30993/full/30993/bay-area-lgbt-jews-to-get-helping-hand-from-new-group/ <br /><br /> <b>Bay Area LGBT Jews to get helping hand from new group</b> <br /> Friday, December 1, 2006 | by stacey palevsky <br /><br /><p>The human mosaic that makes up the Bay Area is about to be rearranged.<br /><br /> Jewish Mosaic, the Denver-based nonprofit for sexual and gender diversity, is expanding to San Francisco to make the local Jewish community more inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews.<br /><br /> Karen Erlichman, a longtime Bay Area resident, has been tapped to lead the effort. <br /><br /> Jewish Mosaic San Francisco will not provide programming to LGBT Jews. Instead, Erlichman will support the organizations and institutions that serve them. Her goal is to help agencies be more inclusive, accessible and helpful to LGBT Jews.<br /><br /> "Anything that will help Jewish institutions be more welcoming to anybody is a good thing for everybody," she said. <br /><br /> The organizations' leaders are excited. In the East Bay, Jewish community leaders met with Erlichman on Oct. 30. Dawn Kepler, director of Building Jewish Bridges, described the gathering as "high energy and fabulous."<br /><br /> "We all want this to happen, but we're also all working full-time jobs already," she said.<br /><br /> Kepler said the biggest issue is not having an official network of organizations that serve gay and lesbian Jews. The LGBT community often doesn't know whom to contact for a specific need, she said.<br /><br /> For example, last week she received a familiar phone call: A lesbian Jewish couple had questions that she could not easily answer. <br /><br /> The resources available "have to rise above the radar so people can find out about it without tracking me down," she said.<br /><br /> "[Mosaic] is needed here, and it's wonderful that somebody can give energy to this. By having someone who's responsible for moving forward, things can move more quickly."<br /><br /> Kepler's collaboration with Erlichman is a natural extension of her work at Bridges, an interfaith program of the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay. She wants to see Jewish LGBT resources be as accessible as interfaith initiatives have become in the Bay Area.<br /><br /> "We have to be more visible and more obvious because people will not stumble across a synagogue or JCC the way they will a church or community center," she said.<br /><br /> San Francisco is historically the friendliest and most tolerant American city for gays and lesbians. That doesn't mean it's perfect, said Gregg Drinkwater, director of Jewish Mosaic in Denver.<br /><br /> "The Bay Area may be a model for other communities on gay issues, but it actually has a lot of work to do, too," he said.<br /><br /> Erlichman and Drinkwater say many Jewish organizations perceive themselves as welcoming, but the LGBT Jews they target say they don't feel welcome. <br /><br /> "We've found that leaders generally don't realize that what they perceive as a welcoming institution, isn't," Drinkwater said.<br /><br /> He added that Erlichman is the ideal person to promote LGBT inclusion in the Bay Area Jewish community. She has worked with the region's Jews for almost 20 years, including as interfaith director at Jewish Family and Child Services. She currently has a private social work practice, and she is a lesbian, which Kepler said lends her credibility.<br /><br /> "She can come to a group of straight professionals and say, 'Here's how you're missing the mark,'" Kepler said. <br /><br /> Erlichman will also create an online bookshelf for LGBT individuals and families. The Web site will include a Rolodex of organizations, plus essays, news articles, recommendations of books and films and explanations of how each Jewish movement views lesbians and gays.<br /><br /> "We need to learn not just how to be more welcoming," Erlichman said, "but to really set the standard for the rest of the country."<br /><br /> Jewish Mosaic was founded in 2003 in Denver. It works with synagogues, day schools, Jewish community centers, campus Hillel chapters and other Jewish organizations across the country to help make the Jewish community more inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews.<br /><br /> <br><br /><br /> For more information, visit <a href="http://www.jewishmosaic.org">www.jewishmosaic.org</a> or call <b>Karen Erlichman</b> at (415) 652-2210.</p>

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