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

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 more than 15 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,” published in 2019. Drawing on this publication, Sienna spins a complex story about Jewish sexuality and gender across time and space. Free. Lunch included.

Noam Sienna

Noam Sienna is a Jewish educator, artist and doctoral candidate in Jewish history and museum studies at University of Minnesota. He holds degrees in anthropology and religious studies from Brandeis University and 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.