(C) Daily Montanan
This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Montana Jewish Project hosts Pride event at Temple Emanu-El [1]
['Jordan Hansen', 'Darrell Ehrlick', 'Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- July', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-07-14
On a sunny, clear Friday afternoon in Helena, more than 50 people turned out for a Pride Shabbat celebration on the grass grounds of Temple Emanu-El.
The Montana Jewish Project hosted the Pride Shabbat celebration, aimed at bringing the community together. It was a festive, joyful event with serious undertones. On Friday, discussion at the Pride Shabbat dove into the connections between Montana’s LGBTQ and Jewish communities and the issues they face.
Greg Holzman, a Montana Jewish Project board member, said it was easy to “get lost” in what’s happening nationally and the world, calling it “overwhelming and very challenging.” Holzman also connected anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
Anger and discrimination aimed at those two communities often comes from the same place, he said.
“It all kind of comes from and plays in the same playground,” Holzman said.
He added that events like the Pride Shabbat are a way to bring a little control back and bring people together.
Temple Emanu-El has become a gathering place for members of the Jewish faith and the building is steeped deep in Helena and state history. It’s now a museum and a place to talk about current topics.
“LGBTQ community members have been part of the MJP story from the very beginning, not just supporting it, but helping shape what we’ve become,” said Rebecca Stanfel, a member of the organization. “This event is one way to honor that legacy.”
According to a 2023 poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, 80% of Jewish people support same-sex marriage. The only two groups higher were Buddhists (82%) and Americans who are religiously unaffiliated (86%).
A Helena Police Officer was on duty watching and protecting the event and several attendees spoke about threats members of the Jewish community has received, a longstanding issue in Montana.
Erin Vang, a member of the Montana Jewish Project, spoke about the localization of some of the major issues impacting minority communities. She pointed to the Stonewall Riots as a point where people said they “had enough.”
“We’re in a phase of extreme backlash by a hateful white nationalist culture of toxic masculinity that is frightened about losing control, that is threatened by the progress we’ve made,” Vang said. “This is a time that calls us to action, and the action starts at home and right here with those gathered today. I think our Jewish history has some lessons for us about what we face.”
Vang also spoke about the recent detention of Christopher Martinez in Helena by ICE.
“Our larger community had to rally this week to call on our officials to resist the unlawful detention of one of our neighbors whose only crime appears to have been expired plates, but we have every reason to think that his real crime was having brown skin and he wasn’t even arrested,” Vang said. “He was kidnapped by an illegitimate agency, working in secret, wearing masks without any of the norms of due process that true justice requires.”
She added the patterns were “far too familiar to us as Jews.”
Vang called on people with privilege to speak out and protect their communities.
“If you have enough privilege in your life to choose to be visible,” Vang said. “You also have enough power to make a difference by being visible.”
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://dailymontanan.com/2025/07/14/montana-jewish-project-hosts-pride-shabbat/
Published and (C) by Daily Montanan
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/
