Jeff Lieberman and Franceil Maci founded Queer as Jews (QAJ) in November 2002. After two years, the organization evolved into JQ International. Upon QAJ’s establishment, Lieberman and Maci had a vision: they recognized a lack of attendance from the younger Jewish population at Los Angeles’ two LGBTQ synagogues, so they aimed to increase this population’s involvement in the community. In order to start making progress toward their goal, Lieberman and Maci collaborated with the Workmen’s Circle, an organization dedicated to celebrating Jewish culture, to host a wine and cheese evening. With this event, they were able to embark on their journey of establishing a following for JQ.

Shortly thereafter, in May 2003, they were joined by Asher Gellis, the Regional Director of Hadassah’s Young Judea, who set out to make QAJ’s vision come to fruition. Within the next year, Gellis’ implementation of programming and marketing allowed the organization to expand from 50 members to 200. With QAJ’s obvious growth, Lieberman and Gellis recognized that the organization needed to re­brand itself with a new title representing their overall vision. The organization’s members submitted potential new names in June 2004, and JQ was chosen. Within a year, JQ was able to establish its first Board of Directors, its California incorporation was approved, and it became a tax­exempt organization under IRS tax code 501 (c) (3).

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