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Our team evaluates resources based on their visible, sustained support for LGBTQ+ people—not simply whether queer people attend or individual members identify as allies.
**Proactive & Conscientious:** The community has made a visible institutional investment in LGBTQ+ belonging. This might include funding queer-focused programs, maintaining an LGBTQ+ group or affinity circle, providing relevant education or training, partnering with queer organizations, or including queer clergy or staff in meaningful leadership. (Note, just because clergy or staff are queer doesn't signal proactive but it's a good sign!)
Friendly & Supportive: The community has expressed affirming views or appears generally welcoming to LGBTQ+ people. Queer people may be part of the congregation, and LGBTQ+ affirmation may be a stated goal of a social justice group, but we haven’t found clear evidence in recent years of dedicated programming, organized advocacy, or a sustained institutional commitment to understanding and responding to queer communal needs.
For Masorti/Conservative congregations, movement-wide policy increasingly supports LGBTQ+ lifecycle inclusion: in 2012, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved two adaptable same-sex wedding ceremonies, and in 2016, the Rabbinical Assembly affirmed the rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Clergy may perform same-sex weddings, and aufrufs may be permitted. Still, movement-level permission does not establish that a particular congregation actively practices or supports these rites; verify local policy and lived practice. USCJ: LGBTQ Inclusion · see LGBTQ+ Clergy
Intimate: Typically an Orthodox congregation where members of the local Eshel chapter have vouched for a pleasant, personally welcoming atmosphere. Expectations should remain modest: the congregation may not make explicit welcoming gestures or adapt its communal norms, particularly where religious practice centers traditional family structures and LGBTQ+ affirmation is treated as a private matter.
These categories reflect the information available to us, not a guarantee of every individual’s experience. Communities evolve, so please contact us if something should be added or updated.