Israel David Fishman

Israel David Fishman (February 21, 1938 – June 14, 2006) founded the Task Force on Gay Liberation in 1970. In 2002, the American Library Association named the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award after him.

Early life and education Fishman was born on February 21, 1938, in Westerly, Rhode Island, the son of Minnie C. and Benjamin Fishman. They were Orthodox Jews. His father was an ordained rabbi, although he never practiced as a clergyman.

In September 1946, at 8 years old, Fishman entered Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Williamsburg, New York. At 15 years old he was hospitalized and given electric shock therapy He left Orthodox Judaism and was estranged from his family for decades due to his sexual orientation.

Fishman was the head of technical services at the Jewish Theological Seminary library and then acquisitions librarian at Richmond College. In 1970 Fishman became the circulation librarian at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, and was also an assistant professor. a section of the Social Responsibilities Round Table and the world's first gay professional association. He later wrote that it was a "shift in my consciousness—that I would no longer be afraid—that led me to bring about the birth of this Task Force, this miracle, this incredible tool/weapon for social change and liberation”. The task force's aims included: "the creation of bibliographies, revision of library classification schemes and subject headings, building and improving access to collections, and fighting job discrimination."

The following year, Barbara Gittings succeeded Fishman in leadership of the TFGL.

The TFGL took several actions at the 1971 ALA annual meeting in Dallas. At this time, anti-LGBTQ discrimination was widespread in the librarian profession. For some time, Fishman ran a mail order vitamin store in Brooklyn. The speech was included as the essay "How the GLBTF Got Started" in the 1997 anthology Liberating Minds: The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates. The volume also includes essays by Gittings and another librarian named Janet Cooper. One reviewer said that the three essays "are unusual in their openness, sharing their wounds which still seem fresh but not festering".

After Fishman participated in the 2001 documentary Trembling Before G-d, he was reunited with his family, including his elderly father with whom he had not spoken for decades. The ALA honored him with a resolution at their annual conference.

Works and Media Appearance

Fishman, Israel D. "How the GLBTF Got Started" in Norm G. Lester, ed. Liberating Minds: The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their Advocates. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997), 87–88. Fishman, Israel D. "Founding Father," in James V. Carmichael Jr., ed., Daring to Find Our Names: The Search for Lesbigay Library History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998), 107–12. Israel David Fishman Papers, 1967–2002. New York Public Library. Trembling before G-d. Directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, Cinephil, 2001.