GTU Voices - Natalie Boskin (MA ‘25): Queer Scholarship and the Future of Jewish Texts

As a Graduate Theological Union (GTU) alum and Faculty Fellow at SVARA—a national Talmud study collective centering queer experiences—Natalie Boskin (MA ’25) is shaping a new path for Jewish scholarship. Their work brings together historical criticism, queer wisdom, and deep spiritual accountability to breathe new life into sacred texts and empower students in the process. In a recent conversation with the GTU, they spoke about the power of historical criticism, the role of queerness in sacred text interpretation, and the urgency of reimagining Judaism beyond systems of domination. This article is based on that conversation.

Boskin credits their time at the GTU with helping them deepen an “affinity for rabbinic history and historical criticism.” For them, historical criticism isn’t simply an academic method—it’s a moral and spiritual imperative. “Historical criticism,” they explained, “is an important truth-telling technology of our generation.” It offers a way to understand sacred texts like the Hebrew Bible and Babylonian Talmud not as static relics, but as living documents shaped by politics, power, and human hands.

“In Torah and Talmud, the humanity that’s being portrayed is not always at its best,” Boskin said. “It’s an honest kind of humanity—not some perfect divine version of being human.” Recognizing that humanity, they argue, is key to understanding how domination—including empire and patriarchy—has shaped what has been recorded as sacred. “This is where historical criticism comes in really handy,” they said. “Some people use the phrase ‘pious fraud’ or talk about political propaganda to help acknowledge ways that human fallibility and violence get woven into sacred texts, and into Torah in particular. The Hebrew Bible is full of so much history and interpretations of history, not to mention the historical impacts of what was written. And domination, especially in the context of empire and in the context of patriarchy, really comes through when we examine the humanity of these texts.”

By using historical criticism as a tool of accountability, Boskin seeks to “couch the distance between these texts and today in the language of truth-telling for this generational moment”—not to discard tradition, but to bring it into meaningful relationship with the present.

Integral to this work is Boskin’s embrace of queerness as a scholarly and spiritual methodology. “There’s something for queerness to offer in light of all that changes,” they said, “I think queerness can help us identify what is most true, what is most important, amidst transformations. It is a framework that allows us to be honest about what our tradition is, has been, and needs to become.”

In a world marked by catastrophe and collapse—from the Enlightenment to the Holocaust to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians—Boskin argues that queerness offers a generative response. “Queerness transforms [sacred text] and breathes new life into it, which is what I think Judaism needs right now. New life and sharper clarity about what it means to orient towards life, instead of towards domination.”

“To be in a literal relationship to any sacred text is to kill it,” they continued. “And queer frameworks, and queer theory is really the opposite of literalism. It is a deep tapping into the reality that change is inevitable and consistent and life giving.”

This philosophy comes alive in Boskin’s role at SVARA. “Learning in the SVARA community, in queer normative space, is always a transformative experience for me and I’m so excited see how my scholarship changes and grows as I join the faculty team,” they said, “especially around these questions I’m holding about domination.” For Boskin, moving into a teaching role for a community of queer learners is not simply a context for their own transformation, but an opportunity for empowerment. “One of the things that I’m really excited about is to just be inundated with queer students - to get to hear what people are thinking, to uplift SVARA learners’ torah, and let it impact mine.”

Boskin is also unafraid to challenge long-standing conflations between Zionism and Judaism. “I feel passionately that Zionism does not get to define Judaism for the rest of time,” they said. “There are so many different forces—both Jewish and non-Jewish—that are trying to conflate those things in the interest of fascist regimes.”

Their goal as an educator is to free students from that conflation. “My pedagogy is upheld by a desire for my students to feel empowered in their scholarship and in their Judaism, which is hard when a lot of folks feel like Judaism is inseparable from Zionist violence and from the genocide that is unfolding.”

Yet Boskin holds this stance with profound ethical weight. “It’s important for Judaism to be able to break free from that conflation, while holding ourselves accountable to repairing the harm caused by the Zionist movement. I think strategies for addressing that violence — to stop and then repair it—are woven throughout Jewish traditions.”

“There is a Judaism that is not Zionism; there is a Judaism that we can build beyond domination — and I think we have to.”

For Boskin, the task is not only scholarly, but spiritual: “When sacred texts allow us to feel our life force, we enliven them,” they said. “This reciprocal enlivening is how they become and remain sacred even as what they ‘mean’ is in eternal flux.”

In their scholarship, teaching, and activism, Natalie Boskin is offering a model of what it looks like to meet sacred texts on the terms of the present moment—with truth, transformation, and a deep commitment to life.