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From Washington Jewish WeekJustice, justice he pursues
Local 'spiritual activist' honored for LGBT work
by Richard Greenberg
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Dan Furmansky's pursuit of social justice was "profoundly influenced," he noted, by the "terrorization I suffered at the hands of bullies as a child."
The 33-year-old Silver Spring resident was regularly assaulted, both verbally and physically, for being gay, and as a result, he contemplated suicide.
However, by the time he reached 20, he resolved to "change a culture that had led me to such self-destructive behavior," Furmansky explained in his application for the Cornerstone Award, bestowed annually by Jewish Funds for Justice to four young Jews who do exemplary work for non-Jewish nonprofit organizations.
Furmansky, now the executive director of Silver Spring-based Equality Maryland, recently learned that he is one of the award recipients, the only one among this year's crop from the Washington, D.C., area. Equality Maryland, which began operations in 1990 as Free State Justice, is an advocacy and education organization acting on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
Stosh Cotler, a spokesperson for JFSJ, said Furmansky is "exactly the kind of Jewish leader that the Cornerstone award is geared to" because of the trajectory of his activist career. That is, he was able to transform his personal ordeal into a Jewishly informed effort "to make the world safe for all people" through a secular organization aimed at influencing public policy.
Under Furmansky's leadership, Equality Maryland has been instrumental in efforts to enact a gender identity nondiscrimination law that was passed by the Montgomery County Council, expand hate-crimes legislation in Maryland and challenge (unsuccessfully) the state's statutory ban on same-sex marriage, which was upheld last year by the Maryland high court.
"It feels phenomenal to be recognized by this organization because Jews have been at the forefront of major civil rights struggles in our country," said Furmansky, "and it's particularly rewarding that my work for LGBT justice is considered a crucial part of the social-change movement."
Discussing the Jewish roots of his work, Furmansky, who considers himself a "spiritual activist," said "change has to happen first in our [Jewish] communities." His development as a full-fledged social activist, he explained, was aided by a strong grounding in the Jewish ideal of tikkun olam, which stresses the importance of "repairing our communities and the world as a whole."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Furmansky was raised primarily in Minneapolis and then Fairfield, Conn., before moving to the Washington area about seven years ago. He said in his Cornerstone application that he grew up Conservative, and that during virtually every post-bar mitzvah Yom Kippur, he chanted the Torah portion that bans homosexual activity.
"It wasn't until years later that I realized what I had been reading," his application continued. "It felt like a cosmic joke, and my anger at society's homophobia spilled over to an anger at Judaism until I felt I had executed a formal divorce. For eight years, I had little to nothing to do with Judaism."
At age 26, however, he participated in a cross-country charity bike-a-thon sponsored by the organization Hazon, "despite the fact that it was a Jewish bike ride." Through that event, he wrote, he met Jews "from all walks of life" and "learned about a Judaism that reinforces the universality of justice, whether it's my relationship with myself, the earth or its inhabitants."
Furmansky – who is now a member of Bet Mishpachah, D.C.'s egalitarian LGBT synagogue – said he has been told he is "ungodly, a pedophile, a cannibal and the devil," but "no matter the audience, I always speak as a person of faith, with moral conviction, and as a Jew."