Over the summer, Gregg Drinkwater, a doctoral candidate in history and Jewish听studies, conducted dissertation research at archives in Cincinnati, New York City, Los听Angeles, and San Francisco. Drinkwater is writing a dissertation exploring the social听and cultural history of the encounters between American Judaism and homosexuality听in the post-World War II era. As the first scholar to undertake such research broadly, his work听will help explain how the American Jewish community and gay and lesbian Jews听navigated the tension between Judaism鈥檚 traditional regulation of gender and听sexuality, and the increasingly visible role for gay and lesbian people in American听society from the 1960s through the early 1990s. During this era, American Judaism听shifted from regarding homosexuality as a taboo topic, to a period notable for its听proliferation of gay Jewish institutions, visible gay and lesbian clergy, and widespread听Jewish support for LGBT civil rights.
Drinkwater鈥檚听research in LA at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives was听supported by a Barry and Sue Baer Graduate Fellowship from the Program in Jewish Studies. In听Cincinnati, Drinkwater听was the 2016-2017听Herbert R. Bloch听Jr. Memorial Fellow at听The Jacob Rader听Marcus听Center of the American Jewish Archives. A Beverly Sears Graduate Student Research听Grant helped support his research in NYC at the American Jewish Historical Society,听the New York Public Library, the LGBT Community Center National History Archive,听and the Lesbian Herstory Archives. And the CU Boulder History Department听supported his work in San Francisco at the GLBT Historical Society and in the听archives of Congregation Sha鈥檃r Zahav, an LGBT-outreach synagogue founded in听1977. 听