Website of the Week: Israeli organisation Bat-kol

By Natazzz on Monday, September 13, 2010 - 16:45

This week eurOut features as Website of the Week Bat-kol, an Israeli website for Orthodox Jewish lesBians.

Bat-kol is a religious lesbian organisation, which was founded in order to help those women who seek to develop both their religious as well as their lesbian identity. 'Bat-kol' is Hebrew for 'Daughter of a voice' or 'small voice'. According to their website:

Starting with ten founders in the winter of 2005, Bat-kol has grown and as of July 2008 includes over 150 women whose ages range from 19 to sixty plus. Members of Bat-kol come from various religious backgrounds and include graduates of prominent schools such as Kfar Pines, Tzvia, Pelech and Bet yaakov. Some have established a gay family and raise children, others are still in the closet, all are struggling with the difficulties involved.

Bat-kol organizes annual meetings and social activities for religious lesbians. These meetings allow mutual support as well as create a social framework. In addition, Bat-kol setup a support group for mothers of religious homosexuals and lesbians. These meetings allow the parents to share their experiences and gain strength from the understanding that they are not alone in the struggle.

In addition, the organization is involved in improving the situation for religious lesBians when it comes to rules and public opinion towards lesbians, rainbow families etc. On their website you can find all sorts of information that might be of interest to you if you're an Orthodox Jew and a lesBian.

So far, their website is almost fully written in Hebrew, but they have received a grant to translate the site and there are plans to launch a full English website soon. Once this is achieved, Jewish lesBians worldwide can benefit.

What do you think of the Bat-kol website and organisation? Do you think websites like these are a good thing or do you wonder why specific websites like these are needed? Let us know in the comments.