History

Not many synagogues can claim a Protestant minister among their founders, but BCC can!  The world's first synagogue for gay and lesbian Jews grew out of a weekly rap group meeting on April 4, 1972 at Metropolitan Community Church (the world's first gay and lesbian church, founded four years earlier).  The three men and one woman who showed up for that meeting all happened to be Jewish, and the conversation turned to the reasons for their attendance at MCC and their alienation from Jewish life.  MCC's leader, Reverend Troy Perry, encouraged them to start their own congregation and offered free use of church facilities (a favor returned 22 years later after MCC's building was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake).  About a dozen women and men came to an ad hoc meeting to found the "Metropolitan Community Temple" in May.  By High Holy Days 1972, the congregation had 30 members with two or three times that many attending Friday evening services at MCC. After services on January 26, 1973, the fledgling synagogue changed its name to Beth Chayim Chadashim, Hebrew for "House of New Life," chosen from a list of suggestions by members.  It also elected its first officers, including President Stuart Zinn, replacing interim President Sherry Sokoloff, both of blessed memory.  That same night, a fire destroyed the MCC building, and BCC members raced back from Canter's Deli on Fairfax as soon as they heard the news.  They convinced the chief of the fire crew to let Zinn go into the building to retrieve the Torah they were using, which they later rolled out to dry in Zinn's apartment. With the destruction of the MCC church, BCC needed a new temporary home, and quickly found it at Leo Baeck Temple in Bel Air.  There, in 1973, BCC received a Holocaust survivor Torah from the town of Chotebor, Czechoslovakia, on permanent loan from Westminster Synagogue in London.  We continue to cherish this Torah scroll today, along with two others we acquired more recently. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism) was supportive of BCC from the start, much to the surprise of some members who expected resistance to the idea of a lesbian and gay synagogue.  Rabbi Erwin Herman, then regional director of the UAHC's Pacific Southwest Region, was particularly instrumental in facilitating BCC's acceptance into the UAHC as the first gay/lesbian congregation accepted by a mainstream religious organization anywhere in the world.  While some rabbis did oppose BCC's admission with very harsh language, the national board overwhelmingly approved it on June 9, 1974.  Rabbi Herman remained an honorary BCC member until his death in February, 2008.  BCC's annual humanitarian award, first presented in 1985, is named for Rabbi Herman and his wife, Agnes. BCC was a pioneering congregation in other respects as well.  At a time when most temples (including Reform ones) still used male language for God, BCC created the first prayerbook with degenderized language.  Harriet Perl, now one of BCC's cherished elders, convinced the male BCC leadership in the mid 1970s that this step would make lesbians more likely to join and would make them feel equally a part of the congregation in all respects.  BCC was also a pioneer in egalitarian worship services with lay service leaders and in the creation of life cycle rituals for lesbian and gay individuals and couples. In 1977, after meeting in several temporary homes, BCC purchased its own building at 6000 W. Pico Blvd.  Following extensive renovations, the building was dedicated in 1981.  Thanks to a very generous donor, the congregation burned its mortgage in 1983. As GLBT congregations and social groups sprouted in other cities and even other countries, BCC was a founding member of the World Congress of Gay and Lesbian Jewish Organizations (later expanded to include Bisexual and Transgender) and hosted international conferences in 1978 and 1982, along with several Western regional conferences over the years. In 1983, after several years of spiritual leadership provided by rabbinic students, BCC hired its first ordained rabbi, Janet Ross Marder, who served until 1988.  During her tenure, BCC also hired its first invested cantor, Don Alan Croll.  As the AIDS crisis spread, Rabbi Marder and then vice president Dr. Les Zendle became active in the founding of Nechama, a Jewish Response to AIDS, which was initially housed at BCC and later moved to the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (it is now an independent nonprofit group, Los Angeles Jewish AIDS Services, and provides twice-monthly meals to people with AIDS through Project Chicken Soup).  In 1987 BCC inaugurated its Persons with AIDS dinners, providing food and community to HIV positive individuals and their friends and families. In 1991 BCC established its Traditional Egalitarian Minyan, a lay-led Saturday morning service with a more traditional liturgy.  That same year, BCC's current rabbi Lisa Edwards served as rabbinic intern, later joining BCC as a full-time ordained rabbi in 1994.  Fran Magid Chalin began her 14 years of service as BCC's cantorial soloist in 1993, and continued to serve as BCC's choir director for High Holy Days in 2008. As BCC members began to raise children in greater numbers, in 1995 BCC began its first children's program, Yeladim B'Lev ("Children in the Heart").  By 2007 BCC had established a very active religious school program known as Ohr Chayim, under the direction of Leah Zimmerman. BCC has long had a high percentage of Jews by choice in its membership, including three of its past presidents (Tom Johnson, David Mill, and Davi Cheng, who is almost certainly the only Chinese-American lesbian temple president ever).  Under Davi's leadership BCC has forged ties with B'Chol Lashon ("In Every Tongue"), an organization of multicultural Jews from around the world. With all its varied programs and accomplishments, BCC has never forgotten its roots and those who made its early development possible.  On November 12, 2005, in a unique event at our first temporary home of Leo Baeck Temple, BCC organized and hosted a reunion of 22 Holocaust survivor Torah scrolls including our own.  Our honored guests included Olga Grilli, a native of Chotebor whose grandfather held and read from our Torah during her youth, as well as rabbis from Leo Baeck and the URJ who have stood by BCC through the years.  As we continue to grow and mature as a temple, we retain our roots in the LGBT struggles of the 1970s and 1980s and our unique appeal to people of all orientations who seek a community steeped in both Jewish tradition and progressive values.