Top ways to celebrate Pride month!
By Lisa Finkelstein, LGBT Director for the Jewish Community Federation
The Jewish Community Federation is proud to celebrate the richness and diversity of the greater San Francisco Bay Area by commemorating Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Month! Each June our LGBT Alliance collects and presents a number of ways our community can participate Jewishly in the festivities of Pride. Here is our list of not-to-be-missed-events this Pride month:
- Live Performance!Outrageously popular, artistically outstanding and always delicious, The Fresh Meat Festival is the nation's premiere transgender and queer performance festival. This year, Fresh Meat celebrates its 10th anniversary with an all-star lineup.
- International Film! Frameline is the oldest and largest GLBT Film Festival in the world. 80,000 people annually attend the 200+ films shown during the last two weeks of San Francisco's Pride month each June. We are proud to present on Saturday Israeli filmmaker Tomer Heymann's The Queen Has No Crown
- Learn Local History! 45 years-ago on a hot summer’s night in 1966 at Turk and Taylor in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco a group of people who identified as gay, trans and/or gender nonconforming fought back against police harassment at Gene Compton's Cafeteria. This public act of resistance helped define the history of a human rights struggle that is still relevant in our lives today. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"1643","attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-5568","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"240","height":"180","title":"Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton","alt":"Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton"}}]]
- Wander!San Francisco Pride held over "Pride weekend" June 24 to 26, 2011 throughout the Mission, Tenderloin & Castro neighborhoods is said to be "one of the last remaining pride events that can truly be called a rite of passage. With 500 Pride flags waving throughout the city take the time to wander the neighborhoods!
- Volunteer!The LGBT Alliance has a booth this year at Grove and Larkin Streets amongst the festivities. We will be providing information about our Bay Area Jewish community alongside our Pride partners this year Be'chol Lashon and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Visit our booth during Pride Weekend this year for a chance to win a $250 Amazon.com Gift Card! We still always love volunteers to join us so please sign up for both Saturday and Sunday!
- March!Interested in marching? Camp Newman, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Congregation Temple Sinai, A Wider Bridge and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav will all have a presence in the SF Pride Parade. Invite your friends and family and go march on Pride Sunday.
- Dance! Dancing in the streets with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on Pink Saturday is a San Francisco favorite for thousands of party-goers! This year, Pink Saturday has gone dry but there are plenty of official options for those who want to relax in an alcohol free atmosphere during the Pink Saturday street party too. In the Castro, visit the Metropolitan Community Church to sing, eat and "Measure your life in love" at a RENTmovie sing-along.
- Pray! At Congregation Sha'ar Zahav during our Annual LGBT Alliance sponsored Kabbalat Shabbat Pride Service thousands of participants from the Trans March will hoot and holler as they walk by on Dolores Street. It is the quintessential Jewish San Francisco experience to be able to wave hello to the thousands of marchers while you daven with the first LGBT Reform-Liturgy-based Prayer Book, Siddur Sha'ar Zahav.
- Observe Stein! This summer has quickly become thought of as a Spectacular Summer of Stein. Exhibitions on Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas are on view throughout the Yerba Buena Arts District until Sept. 6. Take a look at how these two Jewish Lesbian women raised in the Bay Area became extraordinarily influential Americans of the 20th century! We have LGBT Jewish programs and family activities listed on our events calendar.
