October is LGBTQ+ History Month, which means it’s the perfect excuse to do what we love most: talk about the incredible queer Jews who have shaped history. From medieval poets to Eurovision winners, queer and trans Jewish people have been creating their own paths and defining our future for literally centuries (even when the history books “forgot” to mention it).
Here are 17 queer Jewish icons that everyone should know.
1. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus
Long before “queer” was a word, this medieval Provençal poet and philosopher was writing satirical verse imagining what it would be like to wake up as a woman, gender-bending commentary that scholars still cite as one of the earliest examples of gender-nonconformity in Jewish literature.
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2. Sophia Parnok
Known as “Russia’s Sappho,” Parnok was one of the first openly lesbian poets in Russian history. Her passionate, unapologetic love poems, including ones about a famous, stormy affair with fellow poet Marina Tsvetaeva, made her a literary icon whose work continues to outlive the haters who tried to bury it.
3. Karl M. Baer
Born intersex and assigned female at birth, Baer became the first man in the world to undergo modern gender-affirming surgery in 1906. He went on to become a German-Israeli author, social worker and suffragist, living proof that trans history goes back way further than people think.
4. Frieda Belinfante
A Jewish cellist and the first woman in Europe to conduct a professional orchestra, Belinfante was also a lesbian and a member of the Dutch Resistance, helping forge identity documents to save Jewish lives during WWII. She later escaped occupied Netherlands disguised as a man.
5. Eve Adams / Eva Kotchever
A Polish Jewish immigrant who opened Eve’s Hangout, widely considered New York’s first lesbian bar, Adams also wrote “Lesbian Love,” one of the earliest published depictions of lesbian life in America. She called herself the “Queen of the Third Sex,” and we love the confidence.
6. Salim Halali
An Algerian Jewish singer who became a star of French-Arab cabaret music, Halali survived the Holocaust when the imam of the Great Mosque of Paris gave him a false Muslim identity and a fake grave to protect him from deportation. Then he kept singing.
7. Rudi Gernreich
An Austrian Jewish refugee turned Los Angeles fashion designer, Gernreich shocked the world with the monokini and produced what’s considered the first fashion video — all while secretly co-founding the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest gay rights organizations in the United States.
8. Maurice Sendak
The beloved author-illustrator behind “Where the Wild Things Are” was a gay Jewish man who kept his sexuality private for most of his career, but themes of otherness, outrageousness and finding your people run through his work in ways that feel unmistakably queer.
9. Joy Ladin
When Ladin transitioned in 2007, she became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution, Yeshiva University, navigating a very public, very complicated intersection of faith and identity, and writing memorable poetry about it along the way.
10. Miriam Ben-Shalom
The first known openly lesbian U.S. military service member and drill sergeant, Ben-Shalom was discharged for being a lesbian, sued the Army, won reinstatement, and spent decades after fighting for LGBTQ+ service members’ rights.
11. Dana International
The first openly transgender Eurovision winner, Israeli pop star Dana International took the 1998 trophy (and plenty of controversy along with it), becoming a global trans icon and proof that visibility and glitter can go hand in hand.
12. Larry Kramer
The playwright behind “The Normal Heart” co-founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis and then ACT UP, refusing to let the world look away from the AIDS crisis. He was famously abrasive, relentlessly effective and the reason a lot of people are alive today.
13. Tony Kushner
The Pulitzer-winning playwright of “Angels in America” put gay men, Jewish identity and the AIDS epidemic on Broadway in one sweeping, unforgettable epic. His work proves that queer Jewish stories belong on the biggest stages.
14. Allen Ginsberg
When the gay Jewish poet published “Howl” in 1956, it sparked an obscenity trial that ended in a landmark free speech victory. He went on to become one of the defining voices of the Beat Generation, and he never stopped writing openly about queer love and desire.
15. Jinkx Monsoon
The first Jewish winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race (and its first two-time Drag Race champion), Jinkx has gone on to Broadway and beyond, carrying Jewish humor and queer joy into every room she enters.
16. Sammy Davis Jr.
One of the great entertainers of the 20th century, Sammy Davis Jr. converted to Judaism in the 1950s and embraced it publicly for the rest of his life. As a bi man, Sammy broke barriers on stage and on screen and has remained an icon, living by his own rules at a time when being a Black, Jewish, queer star wasn’t widely celebrated.
17. Chella Man
A deaf, transgender, queer Jewish artist and actor, Man became the first deaf trans actor to play a superhero when he joined DC’s Titans as Jericho. Man has been using his platform to talk openly about the intersections of disability, gender and Jewish identity.
