Jewish pride: learning from the LGBTQ+ movement

Ben M Freeman is a proud Jew.

As he speaks to The Jewish Independent from his Scottish hometown in Glasgow, the scholar, educator and author’s passion for his Jewish culture easily transcends the enormous distance and time difference between us.

Anything different would be a surprise given Freeman is the founder and leader of a movement he calls “Jewish pride”. Its mission? To enable Jews to see their identity as a source of pride, and not of shame, which has historically become a default position for many in the community.

“We talk a lot about the more extreme instances and manifestations of Jew-hatred – the pogroms, the Holocaust, the Farhud, the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, but at the same time, Jew-hatred has a psychological impact on us that traumatises and shames us, often without us even realising it,” Freeman explained.

“Pride does many things. It isn't just a positive feeling; it enables you to go on an introspective journey, it gives you confidence to take up space, and it gives you permission to not be ashamed to live your life.”

Jewish pride is rooted in Freeman’s experience with the LGBTQ+ pride movement – which he defines as the greater liberation movement that began with the Stonewall riots in 1969 and not the flashier modern Mardi Gras celebrations.

“It's not a theory. It's not an idea. This is something that works. It's something which has transformed the lives of millions of LGBTQ+ people, and it can transform our lives as well, if we allow it to.

“Jews need and deserve a movement that educates, inspires and empowers us in the way that other pride movements do for their respective communities. A movement that allows us to center ourselves, to claim a space which is ours, to tell our story – it’s liberation.”

The path to pride

As a Holocaust scholar for over 15 years – including working as Director of Education at the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre and founding the UK-based Holocaust education organisation From Yesterday For Tomorrow – Freeman says education is imperative to achieving Jewish pride, and offers up a three-pronged educational model.

‘The head’ part of the model refers to knowledge – Jews must develop a greater understanding about their history in a way that is not intrinsically connected to the Jewish religion. This should be embedded in schools and more broadly through community organisations funding and resourcing programming about Jewish pride.

‘The hands’ refers to action, and the importance of allowing all Jews to feel ownership over their Jewish practice. This is something Freeman takes seriously, regularly donning stereotypical Jewish identifiers including a kippah and Magen David necklaces, not out of religious practice, but as an “active, secular Jew”.

“What connects us to each other, to our past and to the future of the Jewish people, is these actions: going to Shule, hearing the Torah, eating latkes, lighting Shabbat candles – whatever it is, everyone needs to find their own practice that speaks to them. This is not prescriptive, but we have to be active Jews,” he said.

Finally, ‘the heart’ refers to the emotional connection Jews must feel in relation to their identity. Here, Freeman uses the example of the October 7 Hamas attack and the outpouring of support from the Jewish diaspora towards Israel.

Embracing difference

On the individual level, Freeman says Jewish pride takes the form of an internal dialogue, which helps us question and define our identities for ourselves and with empathy.

“What we have to make sure, especially post October 7, is that we feel proud and that we know our story.

"That's particularly important because the world is continuously telling us who and what we are, and we need to be able to have at least internal knowledge of defining Jewish identity ourselves. But to do that, of course, we need to have collective conversations that advance this pride narrative."

While the Jewish story has often involved assimilation, Freeman challenges this notion, instead arguing that Jewish pride allows us to embrace our differences to better address antisemitism.

"We've never been a monolith. There's different ideas, different customs, different histories, different laws, different expressions of Jewishness. But being different, for Jews, has often meant persecution.

"The reality is, we are different. It doesn't serve us to be forcibly assimilated or to assimilate ourselves, it is just a continuation of the problem. Jewish pride gives us permission to be different. It allows us to demystify ourselves for the non-Jewish world and to tell our own story."

The community post October 7

When the UK experienced an antisemitism crisis following the election of politician Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader in 2015, Freeman was motivated to join Twitter and share his thoughts with a broader audience.

He has since become a leading Jewish thinker and voice against Jew-hate across the world. But while Freeman has always been strong in his pursuit of Jewish pride – including writing a trilogy of books on the topic – October 7 and the resultant Israel-Hamas war have made him more "dogmatic".

“Post October 7, it cannot be business as usual. I don’t think our community is responding in the way that it needs to, the power dynamic has completely shifted, and my messaging has become stronger because we’re in a different situation.”

Freeman argues that Jewish pride is especially important during trying times for the community, and says it is essential to have challenging conversations and to "do the work" in order to create positive change.

"We need to know who we are all the time, we need to have pride, even if we're being treated well," he concluded.

"Jewish pride cannot just be a form of resistance, it cannot just be a reaction to what is happening in the non-Jewish world. This is really an internal conversation that speaks to identity and emotional health and continuity of the Jewish people.

“The road to achieving pride in our identities is work. This is why we have to make it something specific and explicit. We have to be able to name it. We deserve Jewish pride.”

Ben Freeman is speaking at Limmud 2024. Limmud Oz is running in Sydney on June 9 and 10, and Limmud NZ is running in Wellington on June 15 and 16. Find out more and purchase tickets online.