August 27, 2010

Gay couple came for just a year but were pleasantly surprised to find they could comfortably raise a multiracial family here

By Raphael Ahren

When Daniel and Ian Chesir-Teran - a gay married couple that adopted three black children - came to Israel last year as part of Ian's rabbinic training, they were certain they could never make a life in the Holy Land.

"We fully intended to stay just for one year," Daniel Chesir-Teran, 40, told Anglo File this week. "We said there's no chance that we're going to live in Israel, because Israeli society is so polarized - religious versus secular - so how could a mixed-race, gay, religious, Masorti and egalitarian family like ours find a place, a niche, a community? Where we would be able to send our kids to school, feel comfortable?"

But the Chesir-Terans' fears did not materialize - quite the opposite, indeed - and so the couple decided to move here for good. The five family members - all of whom observe Shabbat, keep kosher and wear skullcaps, including the 4-year-old Tamar - last Thursday arrived at their new home in Hanaton, a kibbutz northwest of Nazareth in the Lower Galilee, affiliated with the Masorti movement.

"We were very pleasantly surprised that we were able to become part of a community of committed egalitarian and pluralistic Jews, both in Jerusalem and now at Hanaton," Ian Chesir-Teran, 39, told Anglo File, adding that the family lived in the capital's Baka-Talpiot area and belonged to the Masorati-egalitarian Mayanot congregation. "At the end of the year, we prepared to go back to America, which helped us realize that we really didn't want to," his husband explains. "So we just went over the summer to pack up things and came back."

The Chesir-Terans, who lived in South Orange, New Jersey, were already a known quantity before they decided to settle here. In 2008, they heard that Channel 2's popular "Ima Machlifa" (Substitute Mother ), a reality show in which two Israeli families from different social milieus temporarily switch mothers, was looking for a gay couple. They applied, were accepted and flew over to participate in the show, speaking mostly English. However, the broadcast did not run until a few weeks after they came last year. "It was a wonderful coincidence it aired right after we arrived," says Daniel. "Despite the fact that almost everybody who owns a TV knew who we were and realized we were a gay family, we were fully accepted and welcomed and almost celebrated wherever we went," he adds. "It made us feel very good and very much at home.

The reality show was hardly their sole experience with media attention. Ian came into the spotlight for being one of the first two openly gay men admitted to the rabbinic program at Jewish Theological Seminary, America's flagship Conservative institution. This May, he made headlines again when he opted out of Jerusalem's Schechter Institute before concluding his year of study there. He felt the institution was not "sufficiently egalitarian to meet our needs," he told Anglo File.

"They discriminate against openly lesbian and gay Israeli rabbinic candidates by not admitting them to their program," says Ian, who is continuing his studies at the Jerusalem branch of Hebrew Union College, besides working part time as a lawyer. "I said to myself: How can I possible continue to study at Schechter by mere virtue of being a foreign exchange student from America, when my openly lesbian and gay brother and sister from Israel are not allowed to enroll?"

The Schechter Institute, which is affiliated to the Masorti movement, declined to comment for this article. But this unpleasant episode was an exception to the rule, the family maintains. "Most of our experiences were completely positive, surprisingly so," noted Daniel, a psychologist and former college professor of family and child studies who currently enjoys his role as stay-at-home parent. In the weeks following the airing of "Ima Machlifa," pedestrians would recognize and approach them several times a day, the Chesir-Terans recalls. Among the people who approached the two were also Orthodox Israelis - including women who covered their hair and their husbands with black hats, Daniel adds.