86 and Opening Closet Doors at the Hebrew Home
RIVERDALE, N.Y. —
At the start of a recent meeting of the L.G.B.T. & Allies group at the Hebrew Home here, the group leaders Olivia Cohen and Liisa Murray reminded attendees of the ground rules, which they had written on a poster board.
“Treat others like you wish to be treated,” was one, and another was “what is said in the group stays in the group.” Participants are also urged to be nonjudgmental and to respect one another.
“I was absolutely closeted,” said David Oscar, 86, who helped found the group with a social worker at the home. “I felt that the world in general was against who I was.”
From Stonewall to the AIDS epidemic to same-sex marriage, most of the participants have witnessed momentous change in societal attitudes toward sexual orientation.
While only a handful of the group’s 15 core members openly identify as gay, all feel strongly about a person’s right to love whom they choose, and have found the group to be a welcome forum for discussing these issues.
The Hebrew Home at Riverdale, which is 101 years old, has more than 700 residents from 51 to 107, and is known for its progressive approach to aging. But Zumba and yoga classes, and even the sanctioned use of medical marijuana by residents, don’t press the kind of generational hot buttons that this can (hence, the ground rules).
“There definitely are some frank conversations in this group,” said Ms. Cohen, 29, the home’s manager of therapeutic arts and enrichment programs.
Later in life, Mr. Oscar said, he found a male partner. But even then he felt that he could never let his guard down. “It was always as if someone was chasing you, as if someone was going to expose and destroy me,” he said, as the group listened intently. “That’s what the oldest members of our current L.G.B.T. community have lived through,” said Michael Adams, chief executive of S.A.G.E., a New York-based advocacy group for older L.G.B.T.Q. adults (the acronym originally stood for Services and Advocacy for G.L.B.T. Elders). “Obviously their perspectives are shaped by those life experiences. Many of them have had to work very hard over decades to come out and embrace their identity as L.G.B.T. people.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/hebrew-home-lgbt-group.html
David Oscar is a founder of the L.G.B.T. & Allies group at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale. He says the group plays an important role in his life.
