Miryam Kabakov (born 1964)[2] is an American Jewish social worker and community organizer. She is the Executive Director of Eshel, a national organization that supports and advocates for LGBTQ+Orthodox Jews.[1][3]
Among other positions, Kabakov has served as director of the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival,[4] as National Program Director of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps, and as a social worker at Footsteps.[1][3] She also founded a support group for lesbian, bisexual and transgender Orthodox women in New York.
She was the editor of the 2010 anthology Keep Your Wives Away From Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires, consisting of 14 essays by LGBTQ+ Orthodox women, which was named best anthology of 2011 by the Golden Crown Literary Society.[2] She was inspired by the book Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence, which was edited by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan and published by Naiad Press in 1985. She wondered why there wasn't a similar book for Orthodox women.[4][5]
In 2019, she was one of the first grant recipients of the Jewish Women's Foundation of New York's The Collective project, which supports Jewish women social entrepreneurs.[6]
