[Canceled] A Rainbow Thread: Writing Queer Jewish History with Noam Sienna

Please note: This event is canceled to help limit the potential exposure of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). For updated information on SF State’s response to COVID-19, visit the novel coronavirus information page.

What is the place of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer Jews in history? Noam Sienna has worked to uncover documents that until now have been scattered across the globe, and largely unrecognized. Pulling together these varied sources, written in over fifteen languages—which include poetry, literature, law, midrash, and memoir—Sienna has created the very first anthology of queer Jewish history, A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969, released in February 2019. Drawing on this publication, Sienna spins a complex story about Jewish sexuality and gender across time and space.

Noam Sienna is a Jewish educator, artist, and doctoral candidate in Jewish History and Museum Studies at the University of Minnesota. He also holds degrees in Anthropology and Religious Studies from Brandeis University and the University of Toronto. His academic work focuses on the history and culture of Jewish communities in the Islamic world, from the Middle Ages to the present. A Rainbow Thread is his first book.

Sponsored by the Department of Jewish Studies and the Department of Women and Gender Studies.

Free and open to the public. Lunch will be served.