Rabbi Julie Greenberg is the spiritual leader of Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir,
Heart of the City, in Philadelphia and a therapist in her practice, Counseling
with Soul. She entered the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) in 1983
when there was not a single "out" rabbi of a mainstream congregation. By
1989, due to lots of hard work by gays, lesbians and allies, RRC had a historic
non-discrimination policy for gay and lesbian applicants and students and the
Jewish world had stepped onto a slow but steady learning curve about diversity
and inclusivity. Greenberg was one of the first rabbis in the world to do
same-sex wedding ceremonies. "I'm committed to turning these rites into rights,"
she explains.
Before studying for the rabbinate, Greenberg was a full-time feminist
activist working on the cultural roots of real-life violence as director of
Women Against Violence. In 1980, she founded Mountain Meadow Country Experience,
a sleep-away summer camp for children of LGBTQ families. She used a wilderness
camp site on her mother's mountainous farm in south central Pennsylvania for the
first seven years of the program. After a brief hiatus while Greenberg started
her own family, the camp was reopened first on women's land in Ithaca, New York,
and then at a rented Girl Scout camp close to the New Jersey shore. Mountain
Meadow's headquarters are at the William Way Center in Philadelphia and the camp
continues to thrive and to serve a very diverse population of "queer spawn,"
children of LGBTQ families.
Greenberg is the proud single-parent-by-choice of five children whom she
shares with a gay male friend. She has published many articles and chapters,
including a chapter in Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation. She
conducts workshops on "Parenting as a Spiritual Path" and on "Torah of
Parenting." "I've lived happily outside the box all my life and I hope to keep
doing so for a long time to come."
(This statement provided by Julie
Greenberg.)