Ci at her new workplace, Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton Mass. Courtesy of Ci
After Donald Trump’s election in 2024, Ci and her family knew they had to get out of Alabama. Ci, who’s not using her last name because of safety concerns, is Jewish and transgender. She and her husband have four adopted children of color. The harassment they endured for over two years from neighbors, she says, was transphobic, antisemitic and racist. And after Trump’s inauguration, it got even worse.
“We lived in an area that was beautiful to look at,” she told me, “but underneath was holding a lot of hatred for those that didn’t fit in.”
In his second term, Trump has issued a long list of executive actions that impact LGBTQ+ social services; access to health care; the ability of trans people to serve in the military (a decision upheld by the Supreme Court), and more. And many queer and trans people, like Ci, say that these decisions have amplified an environment in certain parts of the country that already felt increasingly unwelcoming.
Keshet, the national Jewish LGBTQ+ equality organization, saw a need to act. “When it became clear post-inauguration that escalating attacks were going to escalate further, outgoing director Idit Klein told me. “We were hearing directly from LGBTQ Jews that they wanted to move but didn’t have the resources.” So Klein reached out to Rabbi David Rosenn, President and CEO of the Hebrew Free Loan Society.
According to Rosenn, a group of Jews founded the Hebrew Free Loan Society “in the basement of a synagogue on Henry Street,” on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1892.
“They were immigrants who had just gotten a few rungs up the ladder and found many people in the same situation needed some way of making it into the economic mainstream,” Rosenn told me. Free loan societies, which proliferated in Jewish communities around the turn of the 20th century, follow biblical injunctions against charging interest to fellow Jews, to any neighbor, and especially to the poor.
From the beginning HFLS has lent to both Jews and non-Jews. Borrowers must have a guarantor who meets income requirements. The typical loan term is two years, although extensions are freely granted. Rosenn says that of the $30 million or so they lend out each year, the repayment rate is 99%. The interest rate is zero.
When Klein came to Rosenn, he wanted to help, but HFLS had a policy of not lending to anyone outside an eight-county metropolitan area. Rosenn went to his board and asked them to make an exception. “We want to provide a practical solution to people. That is the primary purpose,” Rosenn explained. “The secondary purpose is to communicate that the Jewish community wants to be responsive when these things happen.”
In March, Keshet and HFLS announced the Move to Thrive Interest-Free Loan Program for LGBTQ+ people facing discrimination where they live. Qualified applicants are eligible for interest-free loans of up to $10,000 to help cover their relocation costs to communities with more acceptance. They were immediately deluged with applications. Rosenn says the stories like Ci’s have been “challenging” and “painful” to read, especially since demand far outpaces the funds available. So far, they’ve approved 13 loans, for a total of almost $130,000.
“The idea that people were having to pick up and flee their homes was something that resonated Jewishly,” Rosenn said. “We have faced a different kind of persecution, but it feels familiar and we wish it didn’t.”
In April, Ci and her family were able to relocate from Alabama with the help of Move to Thrive and another group called the Trans Resistance Network., which helped connect them with welcoming people in Northampton, Massachusetts. There is almost an underground railroad of these funds and organizations, like the North Texas Transportation Network and the Trans Relocation Fund and Aid Network in Oregon.
Ci found a job in finance at the local conservative synagogue, which she says embraces all kinds of diversity. “I think the saving point really has been finding this position within our local shul, and being able to experience that love and that connection within our own people, that we had wanted for so long, but had no access whatsoever,” she said.
