Gregg Drinkwater, PhD student in history, presented a paper titled 鈥淎IDS Was Our Earthquake: An American Jewish Community in the Age of听AIDS鈥� at a conference for graduate students and junior scholars hosted in March by the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA. The conference, 鈥淭hinking Beyond the Canon: New Themes and Approaches in Jewish Studies,鈥� featured graduate students and recent PhDs from universities across the country, in conversation with some of the leading Jewish studies faculty in the United States.
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Drinkwater鈥檚 paper centered on the听moment when the American Jewish community听began a national conversation听on AIDS.听In 1985, liberal Jewish leaders began addressing AIDS in public statements听and in resolutions at national conferences. These leaders had to decide if they听would see AIDS as a disease only striking individuals, or as a spiritual,听political, and health crisis affecting the entire Jewish community. Would a听Jewish response to AIDS focus narrowly on compassion and care for those听with AIDS, or frame AIDS 鈥� and by extension, homophobia - broadly as a听Jewish problem? The paper involved a close reading of two influential sermons, both delivered simultaneously by听Reform rabbis at two different synagogues in San Francisco on Yom Kippur in 1985. One was delivered by Rabbi Yoel Kahn at Congregation Sha鈥檃r Zahav, the city鈥檚 gay and lesbian synagogue,听and听the other by Rabbi Robert Kirschner at Congregation Emanu-el, the city鈥檚 largest Reform synagogue. Examining these sermons in detail allowed Drinkwater to return to these early听moments in the Jewish conversation on AIDS. The sermons - both widely circulated and discussed nationally at the time - reflected both the narrow听and broad possibilities for a Jewish response, illustrating a turning point when听two competing visions of how liberal American Jews could respond to AIDS听were on offer.