The following is a sample profile from the book Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints by Daneen Akers.

Irwin Keller

It’s 1969, and a nine-year-old boy sits attentively in his Hebrew Sunday school class in the suburbs of Chicago. The teacher is reading a story about Rabbi Hillel, a beloved Jewish teacher who lived in Ancient Rome and died in 10 AD. As a young boy, Hillel wanted to learn from the rabbis who spent hours talking about the Torah and the other books in the Hebrew Scriptures. “You are too young to listen to the rabbis,” he was told.

Undeterred, Hillel climbed the roof of the building where the rabbis gathered. It was winter, so a fire was kept burning to keep the rabbis warm while they gathered to talk, debate, and learn from each other. A hole in the roof let the smoke of the fire escape into the chilly air. Young Hillel positioned himself on the roof next to that hole to hear the rabbis talking in the room below. He stayed there all night in the cold, and snow started to pile up on his body. In the morning, the wife of one of the rabbis discovered him half-frozen on the rooftop. This was the extent to which the young Hillel was willing to go in order to learn.

The boy listening to his teacher read about Hillel sat in rapt attention. He felt tears spring to his eyes. “This is what I want to do, too!” he thought. “I just want to learn.”

That’s when young Irwin Keller knew that he wanted to grow up to be a rabbi. Like Rabbi Hillel, Irwin wanted to learn about the Holy Scriptures and live a life immersed in Jewish scholarship and spirituality.

Irwin’s family and friends supported his goal. But when he was in his early twenties, Irwin started to realize that his path to becoming a rabbi might be more complicated than it would be for his friends. Irwin had come out as gay, and at that time there was no way to be openly gay while studying to be a rabbi.

“I wasn’t willing to go back into the closet,” Irwin remembers now. “I was 22 and had a boyfriend. And if I was trying to get close to God, it felt wrong to be lying at the same time about who I was.”

So Irwin went to school to become a lawyer instead, thinking that he could use a legal degree to help people who needed an advocate. In college, he started a discussion group for gay Jewish people. Irwin’s connection to God stayed strong even though the official organizations of the Jewish world condemned gay relationships. “When you grow up having a secret that you can’t share with the grown-ups, God becomes very important.”

The AIDS epidemic hit Chicago in full force in 1983. Because many of the first people with AIDS were gay men, Irwin and several friends got involved helping people as well as trying to change local laws to become more compassionate and fair. At the time, LGBTQ people could be fired from their jobs, denied housing, and turned away from almost any business simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. (Sadly, this is still true in many states.) And, at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, many people feared that they could catch the virus just by touching a person with AIDS.

We now know that isn’t true, but believing the myth that AIDS was contagious made some people—people who hated LGBTQ people already—feel justified in treating people with AIDS cruelly.

Irwin and his friends didn’t think it was right to treat people with AIDS that way. A big principle in the Jewish faith is Tikkun Olam, which means, “repair of the world.” We are called to do what we can in our families, schools, places of worship, and communities to try to help people in need and work to fix the causes of injustice.
So, in addition to caring for people, Irwin and his friends started working to pass a non-discrimination law in Chicago. At first, the people who vote on rules for the city weren’t interested in that law. But Irwin and his friends kept organizing and planning. They started collaborating with groups that represented other people who faced dis- crimination, such as divorced women, disabled people, and men who had been asked to leave the military—often because they were gay. They realized that when they all came together to work for a better city, they had more influence and power than when each group worked on its own. The disability advocates in particular became strong allies with the LGBTQ advocates. Irwin was surprised—he wasn’t used to people sticking up for LGBTQ people. “We realized we weren’t alone,” he says.

After one particularly disappointing city council hearing, Irwin saw how depressed and hurt his friends were. He asked to speak. “Don’t confuse this law with who you are,” Irwin said. “We have the ability to love each other and express who we are. These laws will eventually get passed. But it’s not like we have nothing now. We have each other.” Several people began crying when they heard Irwin’s hopeful words. Irwin saw the pain. He saw the injustice. And he could see the beauty of each person in the group. Irwin was still being true to that call he felt when he was a young boy to help meet people’s spiritual needs. Irwin’s hopeful prediction that laws would change turned out to be correct. The non-discrimination ordinance he and his friends and allies worked for passed in 1989. To this day, it’s still the law in Chicago.

Irwin now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his husband, as well as other grownups and kids who decided to make a family together. Irwin realized after a few years of being a lawyer that he wasn’t meant for that profession. He started performing in a local a cappella musical group of four gay men who dressed in drag. Drag is a performance art in which men—often, but not always, gay men—dress as women. Their style of dress is bold and loud because they want their audience to know that they are playing a role. Drag has been an effective way for performers to comment on gender roles and politics for a long time, and people who perform and attend drag shows have a lot of fun. For 21 years, Irwin performed as Winnie, a drag queen with big hair, hilarious social commentary, and great harmonies.

In 2008, Irwin also began serving as a rabbi at a small synagogue. The community soon realized that Irwin’s gifts as musician, writer, activist, Torah-interpreter, and bringer of hope in difficult times made the perfect mix for the type of rabbi they wanted. Irwin has also been in school part-time to be ordained as a rabbi. “Being a rabbi is something I always imagined I would one day do, and suddenly it happened by itself. It’s been some of the best work I’ve ever done.”

Irwin knows that seeing hope in difficult times is one of his gifts. “I tend to have a fairly deep well of hope,” he says. Irwin knows that his capacity to find hope in difficult times is due, in large part, to the atmosphere of love and kindness he grew up in, even when his family realized he was different. He knows that not everyone gets to grow up that way, and he thinks that might still be a gift he can offer others. “Maybe my ability to see hope and speak that hope into existence is part of my mission to be a hope-monger.”

How could you be a hope-monger?

Glossary Terms

A cappella
Singing without musical instruments as an accompaniment.

Advocate
A person who publicly speaks out or otherwise works for the rights of others or to support a cause.

AIDS/AIDS Epidemic
The name stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS is a disease caused by the HIV virus that greatly reduces the body’s immunity or ability to fight off common viruses. The first cases of AIDS were diagnosed in the U.S. in 1981. At first, almost everyone who developed AIDS died, and there was panic about how it was passed from one person to another. Today, much better treatment options and medications are available so that people with HIV and AIDS can live full lives, especially in countries with access to and funding for treatment.

Called/Calling
The sense that God, or a messenger of God, has specifically assigned a person a certain job; often applied in religious job settings, such as, “I was called to become a minister.”

Coming Out
An announcement of one’s true sexual orientation or gender identity, either to oneself or publicly.

Disability
A physical or mental difference that can limit a person’s ability to do certain tasks without proper accommodations. Many of these limitations could be reduced or eliminated by providing the necessary accommodations and adapting our environments to prioritize accessibility for everyone.

Drag
A performance art in which men—often, but not always, gay men—dress as women. Drag performers’ style of dress is bold and loud because they want their audience to know that they are playing a role. Drag has been an effective way for performers to comment on gender rules and politics for a long time while having fun with an audience.

Gay
A person who can fall in love with someone of the same sex.

Gender
A person’s internal sense of being a boy, girl, or somewhere in between.

Gender Roles
An idea about the behaviors, jobs, and roles that are appropriate for a person of a particular gender; these change over time; examples of these include the outdated and not accurate, “all nurses are women; all police officers are men.”

Hebrew Scriptures
The holy text of Judaism which describes the promise between God and the Jewish people; the Christian Bible uses the same texts but often calls them the “Old Testament,” but for Jews, there is nothing outdated or “old” about these texts.

Jewish/Judaism
A person who follows Judaism, which is likely the world’s oldest monotheistic religion (belief in only one God). Judaism was formed nearly 4,000 years ago by the ancient Hebrews. Jews believe God formed a special covenant with Abraham to form a great nation from his descendants if he followed God’s directions. Judaism is one of the three Abrahamic faiths and emphasizes living a just and compassionate life that respects all people as made in the image of God.

LGBTQ
The acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people; other commonly used acronyms for gender and sexual minorities include LGBTQI, LGBTQIA, and LGBTQ+.

Rabbi
A Jewish scholar, teacher, or religious leader.

Sexual Orientation
A term that describes who a person is attracted to and could fall in love with; sexual orientations include Gay, Lesbian, straight (Heterosexual), and Bisexual, among others.

Social Commentary
Communicating about important social and political issues; any communication form can have social commentary, but books, films, and all types of art often include social commentary.

Spiritual
Something that relates to the human soul or spirit.

Synagogue
The building where Jewish congregations gather for worship, instruction, and community.

The Closet
Not actually a physical place, but a symbolic one, referring to where a person who is LGBTQ has to hide when they don’t feel safe enough to be honest about their true sexual orientation or gender.

Tikkun Olam
A Jewish concept defined by acts of kindness and justice performed to repair the world.

More Reading: A Reflection for Rosh Hashanah 5782 “Happy Camper: Entering a Year of Letting Go” by Irwin Keller

Read another sample chapter from the Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints book by Daneen Akers.