This trans rabbi is fighting bigotry in America

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A transgender rabbi is taking on America’s alt-right over LGBT rights.

Rabbi Silverstein has confronted far right commentator Ben Shapiro over his comments on trans people.

The alt-righter had referred to being trans as a “mental illness” in public comments.

Shapiro previously wrote that: “men can’t magically become women, and women can’t magically become men.”

Rabbi Silverstein is now dedicating his work to confronting the bigotry.

He wrote: “The Torah teaches that we are all created in God’s image.

Shapiro failed to extend this teaching to the transgender community or to people with mental illness.”

Rabbi Silverstein added: “What Shapiro misses is that part of living life is about becoming who we are, living into our potential, recognising our gifts and sharing those with the world.

“For transgender people, the barriers to do so are higher.

“We often take longer to figure out who we are, how to make it real to ourselves and how to actualise that in our world.

The rabbi is determined that the commentator’s comments shouldn’t be seen as mainstream in Judaism.

“Shapiro’s sharp words demonstrate arrogance rather than menschlichkeit, and fail to live up to the promise of the proverbs that we recite each time we return the Torah to the ark, that the Torah’s “ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace.”

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