Explores the dramatic true story of a group of gay and lesbian Jews confronting questions of sexual identity within a traditional religious framework in the creation of the largest gay congregation.

A Gay Synagogue in New York recounts the communal experiences and personal dilemmas of the congregants of Beth Simchat Torah, the largest gay and lesbian synagogue in the United States.

"A clear winner . . . this book is a model of how to do ethnography in a modern context." - Leonard Plotnicov, author of American Culture: Essays on the Familiar and Unfamiliar

"A important book." - Jewish Journal of Sociology

"Shokeid is skillful in conveying the ideological, gender-based, and religious cleavages that make the establishment of a lesbian and gay congregation a complicated endeavor." - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography