For more than forty years there was a single synagogue in the quiet town of Williamette, Oregon. But then disagreements over gender roles, homosexuality, Israeli politics, and other issues tore the synagogue in two. Where there was once one Jewish community under one roof, there are now two hostile congregations_one Reconstructionist, one Orthodox_across the street from one another. Through a year as a participant in both congregations and in-depth interviews, Zuckerman tells a mesmerizing story of this religious schism. Strife in the Sanctuary then contemplates why religious groups split apart and how religious symbols come to mean different things to different groups. The first book-length study of a single congregation breaking in two, Strife in the Sanctuary provides a welcome ethnographic study for sociologists of religion. Plus, its moving story makes it an excellent read for undergraduate classes or anyone interested in religious divisions.

"Communists in Closets: Queering the History 1930s-1990s explores the history of gay, lesbian and non-heterosexual people in the Communist Party in the United States The Communist Party banned LGBT people from membership beginning in 1938 when it cast them off as "degenerates." It persisted in this policy until 1991 when the Party split apart in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. During this 60- year ban, gays and lesbians who did join the Communist Party were deeply closeted within it, as well as in their public lives as both queer and Communist. By the late 1930s the Communist Party had a membership approaching 100,000 and tens of thousands of more people moved in its orbit through the Popular Front against fascism, anti-racist organizing, especially in the south, and its widely read cultural magazine, The New Masses. Based on a decade of archival research, correspondence, and interviews, Bettina Aptheker explores this history, also pulling from her own experience as a closeted lesbian in the Communist Party in the 1960s and 70s. Ironically, and in spite of this homophobia individual Communists laid some of the political and theoretical foundations for lesbian and gay liberation, and contributed significantly to peace, social justice, civil rights, Black and Latinx liberation movements. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and general readers in political history, gender studies and the history of sexuality"--