(Jewish Group) To My Gay Friends: I'm Not Here for Your "Casual" Anti-Semitism

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

I don’t believe in organized religion. To me, Jewish identity is about history, family, tradition. It’s less about a preset order of prayers to absolve one of sin. I attended Shabbat services a few months ago at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST)—the nation’s largest LGBTQ synagogue. During services, my friend Josh ran in and plopped down beside me. Josh looks like the long-lost son of Al Pacino—if Al had shacked up with a Hebraic woman.

We agreed to catch up over coffee a few days later. As I approached Ninth Avenue, I saw Josh waiting for me, waving wildly from across the street with a toothy smile. He removed his baseball cap to reveal a yarmulke. He told me he wears the baseball cap to avoid the stares he gets. In addition to being an Orthodox Jew, Josh is also openly gay, but if you didn’t know him, you would think he was a perfectly secular mensch living in Hell’s Kitchen.

Wearing his Jewishness on his head, Josh has a difficult time dating. As soon as he tells a boy that he keeps kosher and has separate sets of dishes (one for meat, one for dairy), the guy says it’s not going to work.

“Do you think it would be the same for observant Christians?” he asked me as our cappuccinos arrived. I honestly didn’t know. Christians didn’t have separate dishes. It felt to us like there was an ick factor if you were an observant Jew.

“We are gay with our Jewish friends and Jewish with our gay friends,” was the comment one congregant offered at CBST. I was 18 at the time and this was my first Yom Kippur attending services. Indeed, this insight illuminated feelings I never realized I had.

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[madaboutharry]

1. Thank you for posting.

I think that if you go far enough to the left of any ideology or belief, you loop around and meet the right. That is the exact place where hate is born.

[question everything]

2. One of the attraction of the Apostles -

Jesus was a Jew - was the elimination of the active commandments - keeping Kosher, observing Shabbat - and others.

So, yes, I suppose that connecting with a Christian would be easier from that respect. For both gay and straight.

[MosheFeingold]

4. Point of order

I took one comparative religion class in my life.

Apparently, the prevailing view of early Nazarines was Jewish people who worshiped the Nazarene were still required to follow Jewish law, while goy worshipers of the Nazarine were not required to.

It was only after the take over of the religion by the Romans that Jewish Nazarines were forced to give up Jewish practices.

So, no, conversion would not help. Once a Jew, always a Jew.

[question everything]

5. As many realized when the Nazis came to power

[MosheFeingold]

3. Interesting read

I've shared it with an gentleman (old to you, probably --60s and young for me) who volunteers at the shul I attend -- he's gay, but 100% celibate and has been for over 10 years. I play golf with him about once a month.

And, no it's not because the Lubavitcher Rabbi would disapprove (which he probably would, so no one tells the Rabbi), but because he couldn't take the casual antisemitism in the local gay community.

Nice guy. Can't play golf for crap, though. Also talks during my back swing.

[question everything]

6. On the other hand

If he is gay, he is not Orthodox.

Just saying...

[Behind the Aegis]

7. THat isn't true either.

While certainly a "unicorn" of sorts, one can be an Orthodox Jew and be gay. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Might I suggest Trembling Before G-d...

Trembling Before G-d is a 2001 American documentary film about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. It was directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, an American who wanted to compare Orthodox Jewish attitudes to homosexuality with his own upbringing as a gay Conservative Jew.

The film received ten award nominations, winning seven, including Best Documentary awards at the 2001 Berlin and Chicago film festivals. However, some criticized the film as showing a one-sided view of Orthodox Judaism's response to homosexuality. These include South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein as well as Agudah spokesperson Avi Shafran.

The film is mostly in English, but also has some subtitled Yiddish and Hebrew. The film follows the lives of several gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews and includes interviews with rabbis and psychotherapists about Orthodox attitudes towards homosexuality. During the film's six-year production, DuBowski met hundreds of homosexual Jews, but only a handful agreed to be filmed due to fear of being ostracized from their communities.[1] Many people who agreed to be interviewed are shown only in silhouette or with their faces pixelized.[2] The majority of the participants are American Jews, with one British and one Israeli Jew also featured. The film was successful at the box office, grossing over $788,896 on eight screens by its close date.[3]

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The entire piece is here:

[question everything]

8. Have not seen it. Perhaps I should

2001, even before the attack, was a complicated year for us.

Still, if one really follows all the halakhically (sp?) rules, one cannot be gay.

This, of course, is one of many reasons why Judaism has developed new, progressive forms.

I think that all the progressive ones: Conservative, Reform Reconstruction allow rabbis to officiate on mixed marriages (mixed faiths, that is). But I remember in the 80s, there was someone from the Hebrew University law school visiting, talked about mixed marriages. And someone in the audience protested that his or her son or daughter in law was such a nice person. And I was thinking that being a nice person does not make that person a Jew.

Of course, things have changes since, but I don't think that Orthodox rabbis will officiate on a mixed ceremony.

[MosheFeingold]

9. Actually you can

You can be gay. You just can’t have sex.

Sounds like a distinction without a difference to you young folk, but call me after you hit 85 or so.

A young Marylyn Monroe could land in my lap now, and I’d ask her about her day.

[Mosby]

10. that's the masorti opinion, but orthodox?

Homosexuality, Human Dignity and Halakhah - The Rabbinical ...
www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/.../dorff_nevins_reisner_dignity.pdf

[MosheFeingold]

11. No Rabbi here

Just a guy who goes to shul, and specifically, a Lubavitcher one.

http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/237,2139473/What-is-the-Jewish-view-on-homosexuality.html

I'm way out of my area of knowledge, other than generally thinking the situation pretty unfair.

And also knowing that I fail, daily, in performing (and not performing) the required mitzvahs, so I am no one to lecture anyone