Letter from NYC: It's Time To Speak Out Against Haredi Homophobia

Reading about New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino's homophobic turn in front of an ultra-Orthodox audience last Sunday, my thoughts drifted back to painful memories of my middle school years.

Paladino's Bias And The Charedim: Time To Speak Out
Jeremy Burton • The Jewish Week

Reading about New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino's homophobic turn in front of an ultra-Orthodox audience last Sunday, my thoughts drifted back to painful memories of my middle school years.

The first time I contemplated suicide was at a charedi middle school in Manhattan. I felt out of place there, and though I didn't have a name for my depression, my parents were aware enough of my state that I spent three years seeing a psychologist. With that help, I found some happiness in my solitude. Then I was sent away for high school to a right-wing Orthodox yeshiva boarding school in Westchester.

In ninth grade I developed a crush on a boy in the eleventh grade. He was handsome, funny, and he took a reciprocal interest in me, arranging for me to switch to sharing a room with him. Our first kiss, initiated by him, was when he drove me home from a Purim party at a yeshiva in Flatbush.

But when we returned to boarding school, he pushed me away. The thoughts of doom returned. Without a protective older "brother," I became the victim of a bully at school, an older boy with problems of his own. But I was younger, and I was odd, and the ultra-Orthodox rabbis ignored the situation. Thoughts of suicide returned, and throughout 10th and 11th grade, I sometimes would imagine the varieties of ultimate solutions to the isolation and sense of difference I felt.
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In 11th grade I ran away, determined to be done with it all, to put an end once and for all to the isolation. Yet after a night on the run, I was unable to bring myself to do the final deed. Instead, I walked up to a police station in Washington, DC, where I ended up in a halfway home.

After a week, I came home and was allowed to return to New York City and to a new school -- Orthodox, but with opportunities to enjoy the city of the mid-'80s, while having a public, appropriately Modern Orthodox and chaste dating friendship with a girl. In return, I agreed to go to Israel after high school, again to a charedi yeshiva. There, passion for classmates was unacceptable, and isolation from women and options outside the Orthodox world were strictly enforced.

Isolation and a sense of displacement returned. There seemed no way to reconcile the gap between my growing consciousness of who I was and my desire to be part of all that I loved and found satisfying in a traditional Jewish life: the sense of caring and responsibility for others, the powerful experience of relating to God and one another through communal prayer, the urgent message of essential human dignity in our ancient texts.

I left that life and spent my 20s struggling to reconcile my worlds. I knew in my heart that I was gay. Yet in my head I believed that if I could find that one perfect woman, I could have the Jewish family that I was taught was the only choice imaginable. It took a long series of unhealthy relationships with women, finding a mentor who himself only came out at work after leaving a job as a Jewish communal professional, and the release of the film, "Trembling Before God," before, entering my 30s, I finally came out to my family and at the Jewish agency where I worked a decade ago.

Life does get better, and the world has changed for the better. I am happy with life, reconciled with a public, honest existence, including at the Jewish organization where I work, along with a fulfilling Jewish community. I've taken on a leadership role in an independent minyan, Darkhei Noam, where men and women lead in partnership and halachic collaboration, and where gay and lesbian families are welcome. I have a mother and some other family who, once I accepted myself, embraced me as I am.

But much as life gets better eventually for most LGBT teens, as the Trevor Project's current YouTube campaign conveys, the Paladino speech is a reminder of how awful it is right now in a lot of places. Most of the media cut off the tape after his most outrageous comments, but if you keep watching, it's the next moment, when the crowd of chasidic men applauds, that sends the most toxic message, particularly to struggling young men and women in the ultra-Orthodox community.

It's telling that of all places, it was among charedi Jews that Paladino chose to deliver his remarks, expecting and receiving a positive response. Because this community, the community I grew up in, fosters a culture of conformity, one where the message to youth is that "there is only one way to live, and it is our way." The implication drawn, implicitly and explicitly, is that if you will not live "our way" then you might as well not live. And that message was heard loudly and clearly among the charedi youth once again this weekend.

Truth be told, we don't often work on issues of rights and inclusion (at least explicitly) at Jewish Funds for Justice, where I work. And as someone who works to create social change informed by a Jewish perspective, more often than not it is easy for me to ignore the ultra-Orthodox world.

But at times like these, when our attention must be given to the tide of teen suicides by LGBT youth in this country, not to mention violent attacks, I feel ashamed to ignore the charedim. Ashamed not for who they are nor from a desire to go back to that world, but for their (and in a real sense our) children, all the boys and girls who, like myself once upon a time, are struggling to reconcile who they are with the world they know.

At times like this, we desperately need efforts like the "Do Not Stand Idly By" initiative launched this past week by Keshet (whose board I'm on), to encourage all of the Jewish community to end homophobic bullying in our schools and synagogues. It is profoundly heartening that more than 430 organizations signed the pledge in its first week - including JFSJ -- and it will make a real difference for thousands of kids across the Jewish community and beyond. Yet it is also humbling that few of those voices will be heard in the haredi world. We have so much more to do if we are to reach these kids and save them from the impossible and tragic choices they are weighing right now.

For as the rabbis of the ancient Mishnah taught us, "whoever saves a single life … it is as if they have saved the entire world."

Carl Paladino has expressed regret for his remarks, which at least says something about the state of acceptable political discourse in New York. From the decision of Rabbi Levin to then withdraw his endorsement of the candidate, and the silence of many others in the Orthodox community, together with the applause of Carl Paladino's audience this week, we are reminded: those children need saving from those around them who claim to love them, but only for who they "ought" to be, and not for who they are.

This is our task, and it is all of our responsibility.

Jeremy Burton is senior vice president of philanthropic initiatives at the Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ.)

Picture: Rabbi Yehuda Levin.

Comments

[Doctor Memory]

Cue dribbling idiocy from the usual suspects in three, two, one...

[Keiruv Professional]

Too bad he went off the Derech , he could stay charedi and deal with his desires by fucking little boys as many chardim do.

[blair thomas]

Can someone explain to me why I don't have the right to be disgusted by the homosexual lifestyle, be of the belief that is not normal & want to hold to my religious conviction that it is unacceptable behavior, but of course, I think it is even more wrong to physically or emotionally ATTACK these people.

[Jonathan]

Can someone explain to me why I don't have the right to be disgusted by the Jewish lifestyle, be of the belief that is not normal & want to hold to my secular conviction that it is unacceptable behavior, but of course, I think it is even more wrong to physically or emotionally ATTACK these people.

[ruthie]

that was a good article s.
please give my respect and compliments to mr. burton.

[A. Nuran]

Blair, what is "the homosexual lifestyle"? I've known lots of gay men and lesbians. They didn't have one "lifestyle" any more than Mexicans, Swedes or Koreans.

Do you mean you don't like what they do in bed with each other? Fine. Don't fuck them. Everyone will be happier for it. They probably think frum sexual taboos are bizarre and unnatural. And they're closer to correct than you are.

[Abracadabra]

A. Nuran -

Well said!

[blair thomas]

A) Jonathan, I'm totally ok with that. As a matter of fact most sane non-jewish people feel like you put it.

B) A Nuran, I am not advocating legislating that homosexual sex be illegal. Its when the LGBT community want me to profess my love for them &their deviant lifestyle (read:sexual orientation) that I strongly disagree. My religion calls Homosexual sex an abomination & I believe it is unnatural & I don't want my kids exposed to it. However I would have the same gay person over for a Shabbos meal, so long as he doesn't want me to "accept" what I believe is wrong.

[blair thomas]

Also please explain what sexual taboos there are in the frum world. If you think adultery or even nidda is more bizarre & unnatural than homosexual sex, please explain how you figure.

[Jack]

The question is why is Levin so obsessed with this issue? What is hiding?

[seymour]

To blair thomas,

the question is do we give them the same rights as everybody else?

The few openly gay people that I know are somewhat disturbed by some activist, as to why civil union is unacceptable if it gives the same rights as marriage. many people look at marriage as somewhat religious in nature, therefor marriage and many interpolation of ones religion do not mix

Being tolerant means one must also let insolent people have their believes

[seymour]

the taboo against a man sleeping with a man might have to do taboos against pagan ritual
than sex. Some scholars believe

[IH]

Blair -- we have covered this "abomination" issue in another thread. The original word in scripture תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is a type of sin that is used to describe 3 behaviors in the Hebrew Bible:

1) anal sex (Levit 18:25 & 20:13)
2) eating food that is not kosher (Deut 14:3)
3) a man remarrying his 1st wife once she has been divorced or widowed by a 2nd husband (Deut 24:4).

Do you believe that (2) & (3) therefore are also "disgusting" and "unacceptable behavior"?

[IH]

CORRECTION

Blair -- we have covered this "abomination" issue in another thread. The original word in scripture תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah) is a type of sin that is used to describe 3 behaviors in the Hebrew Bible:

1) male homosexual sex acts (Levit 18:25 & 20:13)
2) eating food that is not kosher (Deut 14:3)
3) a man remarrying his 1st wife once she has been divorced or widowed by a 2nd husband (Deut 24:4).

Do you believe that (2) & (3) therefore are also "disgusting" and "unacceptable behavior"?

[A. Nuran]

Where to begin, Blair, where to begin...

So when I ask about this supposed "lifestyle" you immediately admit there isn't one. You can't think of anything you don't like about homosexuals except what they do in private with each other. And you're right, the only thing gay men and lesbians have in common is an unalterable quality about whom they are attracted to.

It's not something which can be removed. Prayer won't change it. Psychological manipulation won't change it. It's simply a part of who they are, and it doesn't hurt anyone else.

Are you disgusted? Well, a lot of people are disgusted by Jews, Blacks and Mexicans. Not that long ago Catholics were taught that left-handers were "the Devil's children"; teachers at Catholic schools tried to beat it out of them. Seriously.

People can't help how they're made. Being cruel to them for it doesn't help anything. All it does is add more misery to the world.

Maybe you can't be motivated by compassion, morality or your higher self to refrain from doing what is hateful to you to another. Can you at least be motivated by selfishness and your own interests? Every time you promote hatred and disgust for things a person cannot alter, things which do not harm anyone, remember that you might be the next one to catch the mob's attention.

We Jews are always the next target if we aren't the first

[A. Nuran]

Let's talk about those bizarre and unnatural sexual taboos.

Touch. It's the most basic, primal, fundamental sense. Words are nice, but touch is what reassures us, comforts us. Babies can quite literally die from not getting enough of it. It's the glue which holds marriages together, that makes husband and wife a couple.

The deranged ravings of the rabbis have taken a primitive menstruation taboo and turned it into a love-sapping monster. For half of their married life husband and wife can't sleep in the same bed. They can't hug. They can't hold hands. They can't pass something casually from one to the other. They have to put up barriers, literal physical barriers between themselves.

From the moment they can see their children learn at the most basic level that Mommy and Daddy don't love each other half the time.

Then they are forced to be physical on schedule whether they want to or not. The natural rhythm of human intimacy is destroyed and replaced by decrees and prohibitions on pain of penalties and shunning.

And when they do want to express sexual love? Thousands of years of accretion, prejudice, superstition and every weird kink that crawled out of a "gadol's" neurotic subconscious becomes an immutable Law of God Almighty.

You would think that the intimacies between husband and wife would be the one thing that could not be forbidden and controlled.

There's an old, bad off-color joke which has a grain of truth. "Why do Black men grab their junk? Because their dicks are the only thing Whitey left alone."

So you'd think Jewish couples could have sex without permission. Nothing is more private, no right more fundamental than sexual love and reproduction between husband and wife?

No. Not really. If you don't happen to live near a warm, clean body of water the right of husband and wife to even hold hands can be denied if the wife isn't allowed to use the mikveh. After being forced to perform a degrading and humiliating ritual of ramming cloth up her twat for examination - albeit her own usually - she still has to run the gauntlet. No mikveh, no relations. Every woman's monthly cycle is on display. Every husband and wife can be forced apart by outsiders. Every Jewish couple is forced on pain of a sexless, touchless marriage to live near or travel to a place where they can be denied that most fundamental right at any time.

A girl bleeds after her wedding? Sorry. No honeymoon. A wall of Neolithic superstition about Evil Icky Messy Girl Magic that can rub off on men separates you from your beloved.

Suppose you mange to thread the needle and are allowed to express love to your husband or wife.

When, where, what position, what embraces, prayers before and (technically) afterwards even the lighting are all mandated. Whatever isn't compulsory is forbidden. Whole huge areas of normal human sexual behavior and variety are simply taboo.

Want to wear sexy lingerie during sex? Forbidden. Oral or anal sex for variety? There's a tiny bit of wiggle room, but forbidden. Lights on so you can watch your beloved in ecstasy? Forbidden. Masturbation when you're in the mood and your partner isn't? Forbidden. From behind. "Brazen" say the Great Ones. Girl on top? "Bold" say the Great Ones.

You want to see a disgusting, unnatural, perverted lifestyle? There it is, top to bottom, start to finish.

[Alter Kocker]

Bravo Nuran Bravo.

I worked with a gentleman years ago, who was divorced but took his daughters to an ultra-orthodox school in the mornings. My daughter also attended that school. Both him and I were markedly not orthodox in our dress or demenour.

I watched with great amusement as he hooked up with orthodox married woman after orthodox married woman. One day I asked the question, what was he doing. He replied-oh nothing, I just give them their first orgasm from a man that they have ever experienced, I touch them in ways their husbands never would, I wear a condom so that sex is for pleasure only and I take them through positions they are told are forbidden. Word gets around, and suddenly his morning dance card was full.

[WoolSilkCotton]

A. Nuran, kudos.

Control is what the frumma rabbis are all about. Controlling sex is the sweetest plum in the world of power over others, even better than controlling your money.

Controlling women is an essential part of all this. Women are feared and loathed by the frumma power structure. Declare them unclean, blame them for all your problems, and you're in charge!

Of course, disagreement with the frumma leadership means you are against the Torah and against G-d, and so physical violence against you is fine, and indeed, encouraged.

[Dave]

Blair, I agree with your comments.
However, the politically correct brigade, for the time being.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

Nuran, you are a apikoras, you dont believe in toras mosha. You are making fun of the fundementals of the jewish holy mesorah that was passed genration after generation till har sinai. All what you are making fun of, says in shulchan urach and i bet you your kids will; or great children will be reform jews, unless you do real tshuva. And you should know i really feel bad for you, if youare jewish.

[Remote control]

Rabbi Yehuda Levin is being selective about which Torah prohibition makes
his heart skip a beat.

Why not shvitz over other capital offenses like idolatry,blasphemy,
witchcraft,adultery,Shabbos desecration etc?

All similarly invoke the death penalty.

Levin's relentless & bizarre 30 year campaign of demonization against homosexuals has moved beyond obsession into fetish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKqbRjRARFQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvNx3jfFmyc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haj4-7jkz7E&feature=related

Shakespeare wrote " The lady doth protest too much."

Bill's correct, the dude probably hates himself for being gay.

[A. Nuran]

Menachem, that is the best POE I have heard in a long time.

[A. Nuran]

For Blair and Dave...

How would you want people who don't like you to treat you?

Would you be satisfied with not being beaten to death, raped or subjected to medical torture masquerading as therapy?

Would you be satisfied with not being thrown in prison for being a Jew?

How about not imprisoned for practicing Judaism?

Would you want to have the same civil rights as a Gentile?

Say prayers in Hebrew?

Dress traditionally?

Marry a Jew?

Have children and not have them taken away?

Take any job that you could do without the fear of being fired if someone found out about your religion and ethnic background?

Serve your country in the Armed Forces without the constant fear that you will be found out and dishonorably discharged out with the word "Jew Filth" on your papers.

Type "Jewish" in forms which ask for your religion?

Not have to tell anyone what religion you were?

Say "I'm Jewish" without seeing a look of disgust on the faces of all around followed by attempts to proselytize you to Christianity?

Please give me a "dayenu" when we get to how you'd like to be treated. Then tell me what makes you so special.

[A. Nuran]

MMIII - One correction

All what you are making fun of

You obviously understand what the VIN-gobbling types you are spoofing wouldn't. I'll spell it out for a couple of our hard-of-thinking friends. I'm not making fun of any of these practices. I'm absolutely dead serious. Taken one or two at a time any of these customs would be just that, customs. They might even serve useful ends in moderation. Taken together they are pathological, a horrible perversion of one of the best things in life.

[invhand]

We always get this,
"Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting ..." when homosexuality comes up.
Now many Jews raised in traditional homes find the smell of bacon frying disgusting, but they generally do not tell the world that it IS disgusting and an abomination. They say that THEY find it disgusting.
Being gay, even if you accept the Torah prohibition as traditionally interpreted, is no worse than eating bacon and certainly not as bad as not keeping the sabbath (which is in the Big 10).

So why all the "disgusting, disgusting, disgusting ...?"
It is called prejudice.

My own thinking on gay rights really changed when I realized that the social behavior of the gays I knew was at least as good as that of the non-gay.
They were good neighbors.
They volunteered.
They kept their homes well.
They raised their children to be kind and respectful.
They did not forget their friends when they fell ill.

All of them? Surely not.
There are nasty people of all sorts. But on average, my gay neighbors are at least as worthy as any other group I know.

Law in the United States should be about social behavior. That is the argument for gay rights.
You don't have to accept it in your schul, any more than you have to have a ham and oyster roast.
But good citizens have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own notion of happiness, and the law should seek their welfare not their harm.
As a practical matter, the more gays are free to come out the fewer will be the lives and families destroyed by closeted gays trying to pass, often out of deep denial.

[A. Nuran]

So Blair and David and the less courageous members of that crew....

You never answered the question. Where would you stop? What level of hatred, oppression and prejudice is acceptable for people who follow your unnatural chosen lifestyle? At what point do you say "I'm happy living with that amount of oppression. That's where disgusting scum like Jews deserve to live, so it should be alright for the gays, too."

[JewishLGBT]

Thank you for sharing your honest & brave beginings as a gay charedi middle schooler contempleting such horrible ends...

[realisticjew]

A. Nuran:

You are my hero. FINALLY, a person than can call the Jewish wold's decent into our own self-made abominations.

My thoughts on the matter:

My husband and I used to believe in a lot of things that made our lives miserable. When we got married, we were naive and stupid, thinking that the idealistic lifestyle of niddah, tzenuah, shabbos, kashrus, and torah learning was a beautiful life to live. We thought that by abiding to these "beautiful" laws that we would be building a home filled with kedusha, love, light,brotherhood, friendship, and would build a bais ne'eman b'yisrael.

What started off strong turned into a nightmare. Everything else was a peace of cake except for niddah. Everytime we "sinned" (by passing a salt shaker into our hands instead of the obvious table) I would guilt myself, hating myself that I couldn't be a good jew.

We weren't religious when we started dating, and slowly became religious. We were more happy screwing each other in the back of his car then we were trying to be "good jews". Eventually, passing turned into touch, touch into cuddling, and we all know where that leaves. I made myself feel like I was going to burn in hell, or die in child birth for having sex while in niddah.

My own self guilt did not help our relationship get better, it only made it worse. We had a wonderful intimate life for two weeks of the month; the other two weeks, we were distant, agitated, frustrated, and fought more.

I kept praying that to G-d every time I went to the mikvah that He would give me the strength to keep niddah next time.

Things only got worse when the Jewish scandals broke and after I gave birth. I bled for a long time, and after four weeks, we couldn't take it anymore. We had a colic infant, and we were exhausted. I had post partum depression, and all I needed was a hug, but I couldn't get it.

When the Jewish world started to unravel due to the molestation and financial scandals, my husband became resentful. We had been not religious once because of how the frum world drove us away. Now, it was happening all over again. His thinking was why were we driving ourselves insane trying to live by these laws that guardians of mesora couldn't even keep?

We did what most Jews cannot do: We began to forgive ourselves.

We began slowly interpret the meaning of G-d as it should be: that the Almighty is a loving father who forgives his children when they have sinned.

If anyone tries to pick this post apart and say, well I keep the family purity laws and I am happy, you are either a liar, or your spouse is secretly miserable but will not tell you out of fear of causing martial discourse.

As we stopped keeping the tedious laws of niddah that reminded us 24/7 that we couldn't be with each other, we became happier.

Now, we keep shabbos, kashrus, and I still go the mikvah. Am I going to burn in hell because I believe in shalom bayis more than not sitting on the same couch during my period?

No. The rabbis, the books, the institution can all tell me that I am going to hell; however, Judaism is not supposed to be Catholicism. Judaism is not supposed to be a religion of hatred and intolerance. It is not supposed to be a religion that if you commit a sin, it is your evil inclination telling you not to listen to the word of G-d, and you have to repent.

As we forgave ourselves and let go of our Jewish guilt complex, we became happier. We finally found the peace, love, and friendship that religious Judaism preached but never revealed to us.

I still believe in Torah values and in G-d. That being said, if I demand respect from society for being different and believing in different values, why should I not be respectful of my peers?

LBGT are not devil worshipers. They are not people who need a cure. They are not deviant. Are you a sinner for being a Jew, a religion that is against the norm? No. SO why are LBGT's deviants for wanting happiness in their lives?

Our Jewish world is laced with hypocrisy and blatant evil. Rabbi's who steal go to minyan. Rubashkin is viewed as a martyr and our judicial system is anti-semtic. Rav Steinberg can tells molestation victims that they weren't technically assaulted according to the Torah. Is this what our world has become?

You cannot demand respect and tolerance if you are intolerant and disrespectful in return.