District of Columbia
Bet Mishpachah celebrates 50 years as D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue
Oct. 25 ‘gay-la’ to honor and reflect on role as home for queer Jewish community
Leaders and members of Bet Mishpachah, D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue, have been reflecting on the positive impact it has had on their lives as its 50th anniversary celebration on Oct. 25 is about to take place.
The anniversary celebration, to be held at the Washington Hebrew Congregation’s gathering hall at 3935 Macomb St., N.W., will honor Bet Mishpachah, among other things, for its role as a, “beacon of love, acceptance, and spiritual connection for LGBTQ+ Jews and allies in our nation’s capital and beyond,” according to a statement it released.
“Founded by a small group of visionaries, we quickly grew into a diverse and thriving community that has supported hundreds of individuals and families over the years,” the statement says. “From the early days of meeting in living rooms and small venues, to our current home in the heart of D.C., Bet Mishpachah has remained steadfast in its mission to offer a spiritual home for all who seek it,” the statement continues.
“Throughout these five decades, we have witnessed profound shifts in both Jewish life and LGBTQ+ rights, and we are proud to have played a role in advancing both,” it says.
Joshua Maxey, Bet Mishpachah’s current executive director, said the LGBTQ synagogue has about 190 members and holds its weekly Friday evening Shabbat services at the Edlavitch D.C. Jewish Community Center at 1529 16th St., N.W.
Longtime D.C. gay activist Joel Martin, who is one of Bet Mishpachah’s founding members, said like other founding members, he first learned about a fledgling D.C. gay Jewish group through an ad in the then Gay Blade monthly newspaper in 1975 or possibly 1974.
A Blade archives search shows that a small ad appeared in the April 1974 Gay Blade, which stated, “JEWISH GAYS of Greater Washington-Baltimore is forming to help gay Jewish people to develop social contacts. They also intend to do consciousness raising amongst the Jewish Community to the problems of gay people.” The ad included only a post office box number for people to obtain more information about the group. It did not have the name of the person who placed the ad.
In the July 1974 issue of the Gay Blade, an article titled “Gay and Jewish” appeared under the byline of authors Herb Gold and Jen Lib that talked about the group it identified as Jewish Gays of the Baltimore-Washington area.
The article said the group had 35 members and that, “All members prefer that their gayness remain undisclosed for professional and personal reasons.”
Martin told the Washington Blade in an interview this week that he doesn’t recall whether the three or four men he met through the Gay Blade ad were part of this group. But he said they continued to meet at first in someone’s house or apartment in D.C. and decided on the name of Bet Mishpachah, which is a Hebrew phrase for “house of family.”
According to Martin, the group grew in numbers most likely due to additional ads or write-ups in the Gay Blade and soon began looking for a place to hold its meetings and services, which had been taking place in people’s homes. He said one place the group approached was the organization that had started the D.C. Jewish Museum. “And we were told to go away,” he said in recounting the response they received from what was then the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.
Sarah Levitt, a spokesperson for what is now known as the D.C. Capital Jewish Museum, said the Jewish Historical Society at that time had a policy of not allowing on their premises “congregational services to anybody, so they declined the request on that basis.”
She added, “I can’t speculate on other reasons they might have said no. Certainly Joel and others felt a lot of cold shoulders from Jewish institutional life in that period.”
In a sign of how things have changed, the current Capital Jewish Museum at this time has a special exhibition entitled LGBTQ Jews in the Federal City that includes exhibits about Bet Mishpachah.
Martin said the fledgling Bet Mishpachah group soon was able to arrange to meet and hold its services at D.C.’s First Congregational Church at 10th and G Streets, N.W. Around that same time, First Congregational also allowed the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, the city’s longtime LGBTQ Christian congregation, to hold its services at their church.
The Capital Jewish Museum’s LGBTQ exhibition shows that Bet Mishpachah held its services at First Congregational Church from 1976 through 1978, when it moved to Christ United Methodist Church along the city’s Southwest waterfront. The exhibition shows that in 1992, Bet Mishpachah moved its services to the National City Christian Church at Thomas Circle before moving in 1997 to its current location at the Jewish Community Center on 16th Street, N.W.
Bet Mishpachah has prepared a booklet to be handed out on Oct. 25 at the anniversary gala that includes statements from about 25 of its longtime members describing how the LGBTQ synagogue has impacted their lives in a positive way.
It also includes statements from Rabbi Bob Saks, Bet Mishpachah’s first rabbi, and Rabbi Jake Singer-Beili, its current rabbi.
“At the core of Bet Mishpachah’s founding was the idea that one should not have to hide one’s sexuality or identity in a Jewish space, and that all of us are created in the Divine image,” Singer-Beili said in his statement. “Its message was and is this: love is holy, the fullest expression of oneself is essential.”
He added, “We also proclaimed that we will celebrate these things as Jews and people who love Jews, in a dedicated Jewish space where everyone belongs. How awe-inspiring it is that we have made it to our 50th anniversary.”
In his own statement, Bet Mishpachah’s current president, Joseph Pomper, expressed a sentiment like other members about how Bet Mishpachah has helped them reconcile their status as Jewish and LGBTQ.
“My history with Bet Mishpachah goes back to 1980 when I moved to Washington, D.C. to go to graduate school,” he stated. “I remember stumbling across an ad for the synagogue in the Washington Blade. I could not believe it was possible for there to be a place where I could be both LGBTQ+ and Jewish,” he said.
“While that may not seem like such a big deal today, back then it was hard to even imagine that a place where one could be both LGBTQ+ and Jewish actually existed,” he wrote. “After much deliberation, I finally summoned up the courage to go to services one Friday, mainly out of curiosity.”
He said he quickly became a regular member and moved later to take on leadership positions. “Perhaps most important, I found my community at Bet Mishpachah,” he wrote, adding that many of the people he met are an “amazing circle of friends” who “remain among my closest friends today, 45 years later.”
Longtime Bet Mishpachah member Stuart Sotsky, who wrote in his statement that he became involved with the group in 1975 as one of its founding members, told of the obstacles that Bet Mishpachah faced in its early years.
“With the major denominations still considering homosexuality as religiously prohibited and unacceptable, no synagogues accepted gay or lesbian people or relationships openly, and no synagogues would have sponsored or hosted our congregation in their facilities,” he wrote.
He told of how Bet Mishpachah evolved into a strong organization that developed ties to the wider Jewish community to fight for the rights of LGBTQ people in the faith community and the secular community. He said like the wider LGBTQ community, Bet Mishpachah members struggled to comfort those whose loved ones were lost during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
“Yet, as was true for the Jewish people wandering in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt, we were tested and strengthened as a community by our trials,” he wrote. “We not only survived but we were inspired toward social and political activism in the Gay and women’s liberation movement, and encouraged to risk coming out to our family, friends and co-workers,” he continued.
The statement released by Bet Mishpachah announcing its 50th anniversary gala celebration on Oct. 25 says the event would honor “visionary trailblazers,” including its Rabbi Emeritus Bob Saks and nationally acclaimed LGBTQ rights attorney Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry, the advocacy organization credited with leading the successful campaign to legalize same-sex marriage.
District of Columbia
HIV/AIDS activists block intersection near White House
World AIDS Day provided backdrop for calls to fully fund PEPFAR
Upwards of 100 HIV/AIDS activists on Monday blocked an intersection near the White House and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully fund PEPFAR.
Housing Works, Health GAP, Treatment Action Group, AIDS United, ACT UP Philadelphia, and the National Minority AIDS Council organized the protest that took place at the intersection of 16th and I Streets, N.W. The activists then marched to Lafayette Park.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
Activists since the Trump-Vance administration took office in January have demanded full PEPFAR funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Jan. 28 issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Washington Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department in September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. The first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug arrived in Eswatini and Zambia last month.
The New York Times in August reported Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration in July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought on Aug. 29 said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
“Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has defied the appropriations authority of Congress, slashing the budget for the program despite full funding enacted by lawmakers, stealing $1.6 billion despite the direction of Congress that PEPFAR be fully funded,” notes a press release that detailed Monday’s protest. “As a result, lifesaving treatment and prevention programs have closed across dozens of sub-Saharan African countries, while Vought has refused to release money ringfenced by Congress to save lives.”
Monday’s protest coincided with World AIDS Day.
The White House has not publicly acknowledged World AIDS Day. A State Department directive the New York Times obtained last week mandated employees and grantees “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day.”
“Trump thinks by banning commemoration of World AIDS Day, he can hide from the death and destruction that he’s causing around the world,” said Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell in Lafayette Square. “But we’re here to say, we can see him. We see him stealing medicine, stealing support services, stealing HIV testing, stealing life-saving care from communities all around the world suffering and dying without access.”
The Clinton Health Access Initiative in a report it published last month said more people with HIV or are at risk of contracting the virus because of “HIV treatment and prevention cascades” during the first half of 2025. Specific figures include:
• 3.4 million fewer adults tested for HIV
• 24,000 fewer infants tested for HIV
• A 22 percent decline in new HIV diagnoses due to a reduction in testing among the most vulnerable, highest-risk people
• An 8 percent decline in people living with HIV receiving CD4 tests to diagnose advanced HIV disease
• 2,000 fewer infants and children with HIV started on life-saving medication
• A 37 percent reduction in PrEP initiations for people at risk for HIV
• 26,000 fewer infants and children on antiretroviral medications
• A 5 percent reduction in adults starting antiretroviral medications
• A 10 percent increase in people living with HIV disengaging from treatment
The Clinton Health Access Initiative also said more children around the world will die “due to undiagnosed and un- or under-treated HIV infection” if “these trends persist.”
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation in its 2025 Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey notes more than 20 percent of adults said “policies the federal government have made accessing HIV prevention and treatment care more difficult in the last year.” The report indicates 30 percent of respondents identify as LGBTQ.
District of Columbia
Bowser announces she will not seek fourth term as mayor
‘It has been the honor of my life to be your mayor’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a longtime vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community, announced on Nov. 25 that she will not run for a fourth term.
Since first taking office as mayor in January 2015, Bowser has been an outspoken supporter on a wide range of LGBTQ related issues, including marriage equality and services for LGBTQ youth and seniors.
Local LGBTQ advocates have also praised Bowser for playing a leading role in arranging for widespread city support in the city’s role as host for World Pride 2025 in May and June, when dozens of LGBTQ events took place throughout the city.
She has also been credited with expanding the size and funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which was put in place as a Cabinet level office by the D.C. Council in 2006 under the administration of then-Mayor Anthony Williams.
It was initially called the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Affairs. At Bowser’s request, the D.C. Council in 2016 agreed to change the name as part of the fiscal year 2016 budget bill to the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Affairs.
As she has in numerous past appearances at LGBTQ events, Bowser last month greeted the thousands of people who attended the annual LGBTQ Halloween 17th Street High Heel Race from a stage by shouting that D.C. is the “gayest city in the world.”
In a statement released after she announced she would not run for a fourth term in office; Bowser reflected on her years as mayor.
“It has been the honor of my life to be your mayor,” she said. “When you placed your trust in me 10 years ago, you gave me an extraordinary opportunity to have a positive impact on my hometown,” her statement continues.
“Together, you and I have built a legacy of success of which I am immensely proud. My term will end on Jan. 2, 2027. But until then, let’s run through the tape and keep winning for D.C,” her statement concludes.
Among the LGBTQ advocates commenting on Bowser’s decision not to run again for mayor was Howard Garrett, president of D.C.’s Capital Stonewall Democrats, one of the city’s largest local LGBTQ political groups.
“I will say from a personal capacity that Mayor Bowser has been very supportive of the LGBTQ community,” Garrett told the Washington Blade. “I think she has done a great job with ensuring that our community has been protected and making sure we have the resources needed to be protected when it comes to housing, public safety and other areas.”
Garrett also praised Bowser’s appointment of LGBTQ advocate Japer Bowles as director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs,
“Under the leadership of the mayor, Japer has done a fantastic job in ensuring that we have what we need and other organizations have what they need to prosper,” Garrett said.
Cesar Toledo, executive director of the D.C. based Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth, credits Bowser with transforming the Office of LGBTQ Affairs “into the largest and most influential community affairs agency of its kind in the nation, annually investing more than $1 million into life-saving programs.”
Toledo added, “Because of the consistent support of Mayor Bowser and her administration, the Wanda Alston Foundation has strengthened and expanded its housing and counseling programs, ensuring that more at-risk queer and trans youth receive the safety, stability, and life-saving care they deserve.”
Gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein is among those who have said they have mixed reactions to Bowser’s decision not to run again.
“I am sorry for the city but happy for her that she will now be able to focus on her family, and her incredible daughter,” Rosenstein said.
“She has worked hard, and done great things for D.C,” Rosenstein added. “Those include being a stalwart supporter of the LGBTQ community, working to rebuild our schools, recreation centers, libraries, gaining the RFK site for the city, and maintaining home rule. She will be a very hard act to follow.”
Local gay activist David Hoffman is among those in the city who have criticized Bowser for not taking a stronger and more vocal position critical of President Donald Trump on a wide range of issues, including Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to patrol D.C. streets. Prior to Bowser’s announcement that she is not running again for mayor, Hoffman said he would not support Bowser’s re-election and would urge the LGBTQ community to support another candidate for mayor.
Bowser supporters have argued that Bowser’s interactions with the Trump-Vance administration, including her caution about denouncing the president, were based on her and other city officials’ desire to protect the interests of D.C. and D.C.’s home rule government. They point out that Trump supporters, including Republican members of Congress, have called on Trump to curtail or even end D.C. home rule.
Most political observers are predicting a highly competitive race among a sizable number of candidates expected to run for mayor in the 2026 D.C. election. Two D.C. Council members have said they were considering a run for mayor before Bowser’s withdrawal.
They include Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), who identifies as a democratic socialist, and Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large), who is considered a political moderate supportive of community-based businesses. Both have expressed strong support for the LGBTQ community.
The Washington Post reports that Bowser declined to say in an interview whether she will endorse a candidate to succeed her or what she plans to do after she leaves office as mayor.
Among her reasons for not running again, she told the Post, was “we’ve accomplished what we set out to accomplish.”
District of Columbia
Fadi Jaber’s Middle Eastern background shapes Adams Morgan bakery
The Cakeroom is on 18th Street, N.W.
Fadi Jaber is the gay owner behind the Cakeroom’s bright pink facade on 18th Street, N.W. He combines his Middle Eastern background and American flavors to bring a nostalgic spread of desserts to Adams Morgan.
Born and raised in a U.S. compound in Saudi Arabia, Jaber first unlocked an interest in classic American desserts from his classmates.
“I was jealous that their moms would bring these delicious cupcakes to school when it was their birthdays, and my mom never made stuff like that. It was just grape leaves and hummus and very good Arabic food,” Jaber said.
After years of making boxed cake mixes in Saudi Arabia, Jaber tried a carrot cake from a friend’s wife from the U.S. He soon decided to make the recipe himself. When letting his parents sample the treat, Jaber’s mother suggested adding dates instead of carrots.
Now, Jaber sells the same date cake at the Cakeroom.
Jaber solidified his appreciation for American baked goods after a friend took him to Magnolia’s Bakery in New York. The visit inspired him to enroll in the Institute of Culinary Education.
“I just fell in love with the concept, and it was very much up my alley,” Jaber said. “I was already baking from scratch and making homemade style desserts that weren’t super chichi and elegant, but more just delicious and fun and nostalgic, and a throwback to people’s childhood.”
Upon leaving culinary school, Jaber moved to Jordan, where his parents relocated. He decided to leave his corporate job and open a bakery. According to Jaber, his father initially refuted the idea until he tried the desserts Jaber perfected in culinary school.
“He was part of the Palestinian diaspora. So, you know, given all the instability in his life having been forced out of their homes in 1948, it was really a very scary thought to add more instability by going out on your own and starting your own business,” Jaber said.
Jaber then opened Sugar Daddy’s, his first bakery, in Amman, Jordan, in 2007.
According to Jaber, the bakery was the first cupcake shop in the Middle East. He soon launched additional locations in Beirut, Lebanon, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
After six years, Jaber decided to return to the U.S. Jaber noted that he had “always longed” to live there, but he struggled to make his cakes a novel concept to an American audience.
“I’m kind of bringing pasta to the Italians, in a sense, where my cupcakes were very unique in Jordan, they wouldn’t be as unique in D.C.,” Faber said. “But my mom had confidence. She didn’t even bat an eye, and she was like, ‘I think you should do it.’”
Years prior, Jaber began visiting Washington while attending the College of William & Mary. Upon the move, he settled on Washington as a less competitive market than New York, citing his appreciation for the city’s international feel, architecture and nature.
After recruiting investors, Jaber opened Sugar Daddy’s in Adams Morgan in December 2013. However, upon being struck with a cease and desist letter from a bakery in Ohio with a similar name, Jaber experimented with 20 different names for the business.
Finally, he settled on the Cakeroom in the summer of 2014.
“I actually got some calls from D.C. government employees thanking me for the name change, because they said Sugar Daddy’s didn’t look good when they would Google it on their work laptops,” Jaber said, jokingly.
As for Jaber’s identity as a gay man, he notes that he hopes customers visit the Cakeroom because “they like our product” rather than due to his sexual identity. Still, he notes that operating the bakery in an LGBTQ-friendly city increases business opportunities to bake for LGBTQ weddings.
“A lot of people know me as the owner, I’m the face behind the brand. People in D.C. know that I’m gay, so I think we do get some business that way, but I would hate for people to just support my business because of my sexual orientation,” Jaber said.
Jaber manages the Cakeroom remotely, focusing on online orders, deliveries, scheduling, ordering, cash management, and more. He notes that while most days are routine, “at least two, three times a week there’s some firefighting that needs to happen.”
While Jaber does not intend on opening another location of the Cakeroom, he hopes to continue managing the business for another decade.
“I’ve been in this industry for 18 years,” Jaber said. “So if I can just keep it afloat, that would be my hope. It gives me purpose on a daily basis.”
Jaber’s top recommendations from the Cakeroom’s array of sweets include Nutella cookies, the date cake, and the carrot cake.
The carrot cake is based on the dessert that first inspired Jaber to pursue a career in baking.
“I think I altered it just a tiny bit, but for the most part, it is based off of the original recipe that I got from my friend’s wife,” Jaber said.
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