Photos from Honoring Our Queer Elders
By Rabbi Camille Shira Angel –
Like a proud ima (mother), I’m honored to announce the launch of Honoring Our Queer Elders, the newest online digital exhibit of Mapping Jewish San Francisco, hosted by the University of San Francisco’s (USF) Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. Honoring Our Queer Elders features oral histories from a diverse group of LGBTQIA+ elders living in the Bay Area. Each video consists of in-depth interviews conducted by my USF undergraduate students enrolled in my groundbreaking community-engaged learning course on Jewish and queer studies, which I have been teaching at the Catholic Jesuit University of San Francisco since 2017.
Featured are pillars of our community including The Honorable Mark Leno, the audacious and tireless Dr. Marcy Adelman, Pam David, Mike Shriver, Nancy Gonchar, Avi Rose, and Jay Cohen, along with 19 other ordinary and extraordinary humans who have been my mentors, my friends, and my instructors in helping to educate these 18–22-year-olds in queer history and Jewish ideas and identities.
These narrative-based interviews are a reservoir of information, wisdom, and encouragement for students and leaders, historians and activists. As these elders have been in San Francisco for decades, they contain irreplaceable insight into the profound experiences that shaped the queer nexus San Francisco has become over the last half century.
I have been fortunate to have the support of Robert Holgate and others whose generosity has enabled my work and ministry with our queer and non-binary, LGBTQIA+ student body. Our weekly social lunches—”Breaking Bread and the Binary”—host 15–25 students who can count on something savory and delicious, as well as sweet, spicy, and sometimes tart conversations.
My wish? That everyone who reads this will take a look and share the exhibit link, because we are, after all, family. I’m guessing you’ll likely know someone in the exhibit and have ideas for whom else we can include. If you’re interested in being included, please contact me at: RabbiCamilleAngel@gmail.com
When the exhibit went live on October 1, 2025, in conjunction with LGBTQ History Month, I posted a link on my Facebook page. It’s been tremendously satisfying to hear from people who found themselves moved to reflect on their own life and legacy. As Mason Funk of OUTWORDS teaches us, “Archiving is Activism”—a call to action we take to heart as we carry these stories into the future.
As I tell my students each semester, it is a Jewish obligation to transmit our legacy to another generation. These conversations across generations feel sacred and full of hopefulness. In this time, when the political climate is as repressive and threatening as it is, we need elder stories to inspire us, remind us of where we’ve come from, and interrupt any measure of complacency and fatigue.
About Mapping Jewish SF
Mapping Jewish San Francisco is a digital humanities project of USF’s Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. The project takes a collaborative approach to examining the complex history and unique religious, cultural, and political identity of Jewish San Francisco.
Scholars, experts, university faculty, students, and community leaders are contributing exhibitions to tell stories of the Jewish individuals and institutions that have shaped and continue to shape the San Francisco Bay Area. Along with our partners—including academic institutions, libraries, archives, and leading Jewish organizations—Mapping Jewish San Francisco brings the past to life, making it possible to visually explore the rich Jewish history of the Bay Area.
Visit the online exhibit Honoring Our Queer Elders at: https://bit.ly/4nAqlCE
Rabbi Camille Shira Angel is an adjunct professor in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco. She is an ordained rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and was the spiritual leader of the queer flagship Congregation Sha’ar Zahav from 2000–2015. https://rabbiangel.com/
Published on November 6, 2025
Recent Comments