Dr. Ladin's talk will explore how the experiences of transgender people and other “hyper-minorities” – people who are different in ways that set them apart from most members of their communities – can help us understand the difficult relations between God and humanity portrayed in much of the Hebrew Bible. Drawing on her personal experience of being both a hyper-minority – the only openly transgender person at her Orthodox Jewish university – and someone who lived for decades as a middle-class white male, Dr. Ladin will discuss how the ways we relate to those we see as strangers affects the way we relate to the ultimate stranger, God.

Joy Ladin, Gottesman Professor of English at Yeshiva University, is the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. She is the author of National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life: a Jewish Journey Between Genders and nine books of poetry. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship, among other honors.