CELEBRATE PRIDE THROUGH ANCESTRAL ALLYSHIP
With Rabbi Mike Moskowitz
Author of Ancestral Allyship: Lessons on Allyship as Spiritual Practice in the Weekly Torah Portion
Wednesday, June 10, 2026, 7:00 PM | Reba & Sam Sandler Family Campus
Join Arts + Ideas at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and Mike Moskowitz, Orthodox rabbi and Scholar-in-Residence at the world’s largest LGBTQ+ Jewish congregation, as he delves into the weekly Torah portion with a fresh twist: Exploring allyship. Rabbi Moskowitz will illuminate how you can how you can stand up, support others, and make a difference. This isn’t your usual Torah study. It’s a new way to see timeless texts through the lens of belonging, empathy, and connection.
Presented in partnership with the Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.
REGISTRATION COMING SOON
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rabbi Mike Moskowitz is Scholar-in-Residence for Trans and Queer Jewish Studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ congregation.
His three ordinations from Ultra-Orthodox yeshivas (the Mir in Jerusalem and Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey ) enable him to reach communities others cannot, helping them navigate traditional values while fostering acceptance and understanding, and providing authoritative Halakhic guidance that embraces LGBTQ+ people.
Rabbi Mozkowitz is a David Hartman Center Fellow and a Wexner Field Fellow. His sixth book, due out in 2026, focuses on Passover.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Ancestral Allyship, Moskowitz’s fifth book, explores the weekly Torah parsha as a practice of allyship — a response by someone of privilege to the oppression or affliction of another. Allyship is necessary only when the unity of our humanity has already broken down. In the Jewish tradition, we are obligated to prevent this breakdown proactively. When we attach ourselves to God’s expectations of ethical living, cleaving to an ideal way of being, we strive to create a world free from all forms of dehumanization. This book, rooted in the knowledge that how we treat each other defines our religious identity, helps us to move closer toward it.
PRAISE
Every Torah scholar, in every generation, is bound by two obligations: to perpetuate this wise tradition that they have inherited; and to find ways to make the tradition come alive to guide us through the new challenges that we face. Rabbi Mike Moskowitz’ life’s work – to breathe a Torah of compassion into the world for the purposes of expanding our hearts’ capacity for love in the form of allyship – is a holy mission that fulfills both obligations. This book is a dizzying display of erudition and playful interpretation that seeks to elevate the human spirit and infuse us all with an orientation towards lovingkindness. In whatever bodies we inhabit, our generation needs this Torah.”
—Yehuda Kurtzer, President, The Shalom Hartman Institute
Ancestral Allyship presents richly textured teachings from each Torah portion on how God expects us to show up for each other. Taken together, this beautiful book inspires us to be in deeper relationship with each other and God. Rabbi Moskowitz understands Allyship as a fundamental spiritual practice because this is the Torah of his own life’s work.
—Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi, Central Synagogue
