Rabbi plans area’s first ‘gay friendly’ shul

Rabbi Bill Kraus has been out and public as a gay man for more than a decade. But he’s kept a low profile in terms of his rabbinate, coming out only after leaving pulpits at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston and later Temple Knesseth Israel in Bound Brook and leading a quieter role doing pastoral work in a hospice setting.

But he’s about to take his own leap. Now 60, he’s in the process of forming an LGBT-friendly synagogue in Essex County, and he said he has a core group of about 30 people with whom he is meeting regularly to draw up plans.

It will not be “a gay and lesbian synagogue but a gay-friendly synagogue. It’s difficult to describe because it’s a new phenomenon,” said Kraus, in an interview in the living room of the West Orange home he shares with his husband, Brett Kats. On this particularly cold day, he has a fire going, and offers a guest coffee and pastries served on bone china.

“I don’t want to give the impression that it is tailored just for the gay and lesbian community,” he said of the new congregation. “It’s tailored for everyone, but especially for those who have not felt comfortable in a synagogue setting.”

With no similar congregation nearby, Kraus acknowledged, Manhattan’s gay-friendly Congregation Beth Simhat Torah attracts members of New Jersey synagogues who are gay and hold dual memberships. New Jersey’s Lesbian & Gay Havurah meets at Temple Emanu-El in Edison; other local synagogues welcome gay families, but lack a specific focus on the LGBT community’s needs, he said.

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