Rainbow Seder in Melbourne offers queer Jews a place at the table

A Rainbow Seder held in Melbourne ahead of Pesach has drawn a strong response from attendees, with many describing the evening as both deeply Jewish and personally meaningful.

More than 70 people gathered at Temple Beth Israel last Friday, March 27. The event was the first Seder organised by Jewmos, a Melbourne-based queer Jewish community led by Jarod Rhine-Davis.

Rhine-Davis, who wrote the Haggadah used at the Seder, said the aim was to retain the traditional Seder while creating a space where queer Jews could feel fully included.

“I really wanted the Seder to feel authentically Jewish, a deeply spiritual experience to connect people,” he told JWire.

The Haggadah, titled “The Covenant of the Margin”, closely follows the traditional Seder structure while reframing its themes.

As explained in the introduction:

“This night holds two things at once. The first is the Seder — one of the most enduring rituals in Jewish life, observed for over two thousand years. The second is ours: a queer spiritual journey through that same order, asking what liberation means when the narrow place has sometimes been inside us — when the Egypt we needed to leave was internal.”

Participants moved through traditional rituals, including the four cups of wine, matzah, and maror, alongside reflective elements such as naming contemporary “plagues,” which included invisibility, shame, and exclusion. The breaking and return of the afikoman was used to explore hidden identity, while a mirror passed around the table invited participants to see themselves as “particular, irreplaceable, and whole”.

The Seder was hosted at Temple Beth Israel with the support of Rabbi Allison Conyer, who addressed the gathering and welcomed the initiative within the synagogue setting. Rhine-Davis said holding the event in a religious space added weight to the experience.

“To have it within an actual religious institution made it feel extra special,” explains Rhine-Davis.

Among those in attendance was Alex Makin, mayor of Port Phillip, along with prominent transgender advocate Sally Goldner.

Rhine-Davis grew up in Perth and attended Carmel School before moving to Melbourne about a decade ago. He has worked within the Jewish community, including roles at Jewish Care and St Kilda Hebrew Congregation. He is now involved in organising events for The Jewish Independent.

He said his own experience of navigating Jewish identity and sexuality informed the project.

He said, “Many guests have faced challenges with Judaism in the past.” “Even just for a moment… to provide a space where our guests could feel authentically all parts of themselves at one moment.”

Jewmos began during the Covid period with online Shabbat dinners and has since expanded into a broader community network, running regular film nights, speakers’ lunches and major communal events. It now includes around 140 members, with subgroups focused on areas such as matchmaking, employment and housing support.

Rhine-Davis said the group had evolved into a cross-generational space.

“At our Pesach Seder, we had people in their 20s through to their 70s, and families with young children,” he said. “It felt like a rainbow community in the truest sense.”

The idea for the Seder followed earlier successful collaborations, including Shabbat dinners with Temple Beth Israel and a Rosh Hashanah dinner co-hosted with Thorne Harbour Health, a Victorian organisation focussed on improving the health and wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ communities.

Messages sent to Rhine-Davis from attendees highlighted the impact of the evening.

“I think I can safely speak for everyone who attended last night’s Seder. We are beyond grateful for the incredible night of ritual and connection,” one participant wrote.

Another described it as “so gently powerful, empowering and uplifting”, while a third called it “an incredibly moving evening filled with love and community”.

One attendee said they “honestly haven’t stopped talking about it… every little detail, every moment had such thoughtful intention behind it”.

Rhine-Davis said many participants told him they had not previously felt able to reconcile their Jewish and queer identities.

“They said, ‘I didn’t think it was possible… I didn’t think I had a place within this Jewish tradition,’” he said.

The Haggadah frames the Seder as a living and immediate story, stating that “the liberation story is not history. It is instruction”.

The evening closed with an extension of the traditional line “Next year in Jerusalem”, looking toward “a world more whole” where “every person can come home to ourselves and to each other”.