Not long ago, "Siddur B'chol L'vavcha," a prayer book (siddur) for gay Jews, arrived at my office. The blue cloth volume had its start in 1981 as a collection of typewritten pages with Hebrew lettering cut and pasted between the English text. It grew out of the life of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, an 800-member gay synagogue near Manhattan's Chelsea district.

During the intervening years, massive shifts occurred among American homosexuals, including the AIDS crisis, and the changes are reflected in a recent edition of the siddur, published in 2008.

Supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation, the newer book is sophisticated and professional, one more sign of an increasing level of comfort some members of the religious community have with their openly gay members.

Paging through the siddur reveals (to heterosexuals) an alternate universe of experience and assumptions. For instance, the siddur does not assume its readers can marry and have children or are capable or desirous of having them. It includes rituals for the celebration of animals (one prayer thanks God for a cat's purring), World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) and Transgender Remembrance Day (Nov. 20).

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