Each Saturday, several members of a Jewish congregation are called up to the podium to bless the Torah before a portion of it is read aloud. This calling forward, called an aliyah, is considered an honor.
But the pronouns used to summon people in Hebrew are gendered. What’s a congregational leader to do when summoning a nonbinary person who identifies as neither exclusively male nor exclusively female?
Now the Conservative movement has formalized a series of Hebrew terms service leaders can use to call nonbinary people to Torah honors. The opinion by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards provides common language that the country’s 560 Conservative synagogues can use.
Source: Conservative rabbis approve new language for nonbinary Jews