Communities urged to remember transgender abuse victims

Jewish campaigners have called for rabbis and community leaders to include Transgender Day of Remembrance observance in this week’s Shabbat services.

Surat-Shaan Knan, founder of Liberal Judaism’s project Twilight People, said the national day, on 20 November, was a day to “memorialise those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and to bring attention to the continued violence endured by the transgender
community”.

Official statistics reveal that 271 trans people have been reported murdered in the past year, an increase of 20 percent, which campaigners described as “shocking,” while warning that many others go unreported.

Shaan has appealed to rabbis and service-leaders to light Jahrzeit candles and read out the Twilight People prayer by Rabbi Reuben Zellman, who was the first out transgender rabbinic student in the US Reform movement more than a dozen years ago.

“All Jews should observe Transgender Day of Remembrance, because we all have lived in fear of being seen as ‘the other’ at some point,” said Shaan. “Remember humanity failing to stand up, resulting in over 6 million Jews murdered – and countless more – for being ‘other.'”