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IDS THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014
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Interfaith Winter Shelter’s tenants adapt to homelessness the first night after the shelter’s closing STORY BY SARAH ZINN sjzinn@indiana.edu PHOTOS BY CAITLIN O’HARA caaohara@indiana.edu @caitlin_oh
Angela Riley and Ronnie Deckard, a couple experiencing homelessness in Bloomington, watch a demonstration Tuesday on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn in response to the closing of the Interfaith Winter Shelter for summer. The couple have been together for more than a year. Riley said he was “eyeballing” her, so she offered him a cigarette and they just started talking.
Ashley Howerton talks about her children, who live with her mother in Spencer, Ind., before going to bed at the First Christian Church. Volunteer John Adams opened the church for the homeless even though he wasn’t supposed to.
Angela Riley and other members of the homeless community wait as Forrest Gilmore, executive director of Shalom Community Center, looks up what time it was forecast to rain. His phone said it would begin at 3 a.m., but it started raining closer to 10 p.m.
Rabbi talks homosexuality, gender roles in Jewish faith BY SUZANNE GROSSMAN spgrossm@indiana.edu @suzannepaige6
As an Orthodox Jew, it took Rabbi Steve Greenberg two decades to come out as a gay man, but only minutes to recap his experiences Wednesday night. Greenberg recounted his story of coming to terms with being gay in the Orthodox Jewish tradition Wednesday at an IU Hillel-sponsored event. He is commonly known as the first openly gay Jewish Orthodox rabbi, event organizer and junior Avi Sonnenschein said. After realizing his attraction to men at the age of 20, Greenberg went to a right-wing Orthodox rabbi and told him he was attracted to both men and women, and that he needed advice. “The rabbi said to me, ‘My dear one, my friend, you have twice the power to love. Use it carefully,’” Greenberg said. “I ran from there excited thinking I had twice the
CAITLIN O’HARA | IDS
Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Jewish Orthodox rabbi, speaks to students during an IU Hillel event Wednesday in Morrison Hall.
love and would be a great rabbi and marry a woman. Only later did I realize I only had attractions to men.” Typically, Orthodox Judaism strictly does not allow openly gay rabbis. Rabbis are not to perform commitment ceremonies for any gay people, despite the fact that
Orthodox Jews are a diverse group of people with a diverse set of beliefs, Greenberg said. He said gay sex is portrayed as shameful in Jewish scripture because it is an issue of power. SEE RABBI, PAGE 6
When the rain started, the music didn’t stop. The two men singing, “This land is your land, this land is my land,” kept playing their banjos. But farther up the hill, where people sought shelter under a small part of the courthouse roof, the music wasn’t as loud as the rain hitting the pavement. The night of April 1 meant the same thing for all of them — a night without a home. Interfaith Winter Shelter, the only place in town open to everyone, even those with addictions, closed for the summer. It was 9:30 p.m. and they had just finished protesting the shelter’s closing. Volunteers stuck around, but slowly the people spread out, knowing they had to go to the bathroom or find something to eat before they settled somewhere for the night. A light was on in an office cubicle visible through the half-closed blinds of a courthouse window. Angela Riley stood outside. Protecting her bags from the rain, she placed them in the indented window frame where she sometimes slept last summer. A desk decorated with greeting cards, family pictures and a cozy desk chair sat only a wall away. She covered her bags with a trash bag to keep them dry. “That’s how you fix a bag,” she said to Ronnie Deckard, her boyfriend. They were a couple, but on nights like this they were a team. If he went somewhere, she waited for him, guarding their bags. He didn’t let her carry them around, either. He said they were too heavy. They shared cigarettes and talked about where they would go if the rain got worse. Maybe under the B-Line Bridge. Maybe they could convince someone to let them sleep on his or her couch. SEE SHELTER, PAGE 6
Violinist to perform at auditorium tonight BY ANTHONY BRODERICK aebroder@indiana.edu
In 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors said of Itzhak Perlman, “The world falls in love with music when Perlman takes up his violin.” Known for being one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, Perlman will perform at 8 p.m. today in the IU Auditorium along with his longtime collaborator, pianist Rohan De Silva. Tickets prices for IU students range from $20 to $51, and tickets for the general public range from $38 to $69. Tickets may be purchased online at IUauditorium. com or in person at the box office. Perlman and De Silva will perform works including “Sonata No. 8 in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 30 No. 3” by Beethoven, “Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major” by Franck and “Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano, L. 140” by Debussy. “It is a special honor for Indiana University Auditorium to host legendary violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman. We are expecting it to be a
ITZHAK PERLMAN 8 p.m. today, IU Auditorium magnificent performance,” said IU Auditorium Associate Director Maria Talbert. “Through our nearly 75 years as a presenter of world-class artists and entertainers, IU Auditorium has established deep professional relationships with many of the most celebrated names in musical performance, public speaking and more such as Yo-Yo Ma and Mr. Perlman himself.” Talbert said anyone attending should expect an exciting and inspirational performance filled with famous classical pieces, which are accented by Perlman’s distinct and undeniable charm. Perlman has won four Emmy awards, 15 Grammy awards, the Medal of Liberty from President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and the National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 2000. He also collaborated with composer John Williams to create the SEE PERLMAN, PAGE 6