Spotlight on Ruby Cymrot-Wu! A Bay Area LGBT Jewish Leader!

Ruby Cymrot-Wu is a queer Jewish leader, educator and organizer. She is a San Francisco native, a life-long member of Reform Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, graduate of Brandeis Hillel Day School, Lick-Wilmerding High School, Smith College and a current student at San Francisco State University. Recently she joined the incredible staff at Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI). In the past few years, Cymrot-Wu has worked closely with Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, Progressive Jewish Alliance, and Kol Tzedek, rallying Jews statewide to fight for equality for LGBTQ folks. As an educator and trainer with Temple Sinai of Oakland Religious School and COLAGE she has developed youth empowerment curricula to provide Anti-Bias educational programming.

SF native Ruby Cymrot-Wu recently joined the incredible team at the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI).

TEEI is a unique collaborative partnership including  Jewish Vocational Service (JVS), the San Francisco LGBT Community Center  (The Center), the Transgender Law Center (TLC) and San Francisco Transgender Empowerment, Advocacy, and Mentorship (SF TEAM).  Each partner organization brings to TEEI a wealth of community expertise designed to help transgender individuals find stable jobs that provide a living wage, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. TEEI has been successful in placing a number of Trans and gender nonconforming individuals in the Jewish community.

"The work TEEI is doing in our community is quite extraordinary" said Cymrot-Wu. "I am honored to be part of a unique coalition that works to ensure people of all gender identities have access to the things we all need - jobs that provide opportunities for innovation and self-expression, jobs that pay our bills, and jobs that provide comprehensive health benefits so we may live healthy, full lives."