Paul Bass Photo
Offner at WNHH.
When Stacy Offner took over as rabbi of Temple Beth Tikvah on the Shoreline, she did so proudly identified as a lesbian. She could do so because of the women who broke the barrier a generation earlier — one of whom was Offner herself.
Offner became the first Minnesota’s first female rabbi when she took the pulpit of St. Paul’s Mt. Zion Temple in 1984. But back in those pre-legalized-gay-marriage days, she felt she needed to keep her sexuality in the closet to keep the job. Three years later, when she met her future wife, Nancy Abramson, the secret got out —and Offner got the boot.
The story had an inspiring ending: Outraged congregants followed her and formed a synagogue called Shir Tikvah, which Offner led for two decades. She spoke about the episode during an interview this week on WNHH radio’s “Chai Haven” program. Excerpts of that interview follow:
Coming out, especially in those days, was a great risk.
Coming out is something that you have to do everyday. In some ways I think it’s true for everybody all the time. We all have to come out every day. we have to make decisions every single day about being who we are as fully as we can be.
I think that is what I’ve learned most from my challenges and experiences about being gay in the early years. And I think it’s a lot of what I bring to my rabbinate. I’m passionate about honesty and courage to be honest.
At the time, in 1984, there was no example of a gay or lesbian rabbi in a congregation other than a gay congregation. I didn’t want to be a gay congregation. God bless the gay congregations. But that wasn’t my passion. That wasn’t where my heart was.
So I went into congregational life. It was a balancing act. Not coming out and being honest with who I was and not wanting to lie.
If somebody asked me if I was gay … It’s interesting that nobody asked. I think there was an unspoken brit, unspoken covenant. … It was kind of don’t ask, don’t tell.
[When] I met my partner, it was less easy to hide who I was.
Then I was asked by the leadership of the synagogue [in] 1987. I was in a small meeting with a couple leaders of the congregation who asked me outright. I told them the truth.
I thought at that point — with three years under my belt; we had a great relationship — that we could get through this. That we would break that barrier.
We almost broke the barrier. In a way I give them credit for trying to break the barrier. But they tried to break the barrier in a 1987 kind of a way. Which is that they wrote a letter to the congregation saying: People are talking. Gossip is not a thing to do, was wrong, against Jewish values. So stop gossiping. And we love our rabbi.
A barrier got broken right there. But not totally. Some glass got shattered. And what happened was the congregation then had a controversy on their hands about whether it was OK for me to continue as the rabbi or not OK for me to continue as the rabbi. The controversy itself made it untenable for me to continue as the rabbi. And I was asked to leave.
I left. People from the congregation who found my leaving untenable formed a new congregation. Shir Tikvah — “song of hope.” These were people who had a vision for a world based on their keen sense of social justice. They were going to sing that song.
I was there for 20 years.
It was fantastic. It was having a laboratory for Jewish life. There was no baggage. There was no history. It was all new. It was: Who are we? What do we want to be? How are we going to do it? We didn’t take anything for granted. We built on a dream.
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with Rabbi Stacy Offner on WNHH radio’s “Chai Haven” program. Topics include Reform Judaism, goings-on at Temple Beth Tikvah, rabbinical succession, and Jewish identity. The segment covered in the above article begins atthe 19:30 mark.
Rabbi Offner's courage is an inspiration. My prayer is that congregations of all faiths would navigate this issue following the lead of the grace & commitment to Godly love that she has shown. God bless you, Rabbi.