Respect

Recently, an event about gay men in the Orthodox Jewish world was hosted at Yeshiva University. The purpose of the event was to allow Orthodox gay men to share their stories and for a broad Orthodox audience to hear those stories. However, the aftermath of the event tends to ignore the stories of these men. Instead, those concerned with the events have chosen to focus on issues of the proper halakhot concerning homosexual men and with issues of academic freedom and who does and should have the right to speak how on what topic at YU.

While I admire the progress that has led to this event being able to happen at YU, I can't help but feel ambivalent about the outcome. An event whose purpose seemed to be to put faces and stories together with the all-too-often-ignored identity of gay and Orthodox has been simplified to a catalyst for a conversation about halakha and whether Yeshiva University should be more yeshiva or more university. So even my progessive Orthodox (and non-Jewish) friends haven't wanted to talk to me about the power of Jewish Queer Youth founder Mordechai Levovitz's story, or those of his contemporaries, but rather about abstract ideas related to the theory of YU hosting such an event.

While they might have theoretical and academic aspects, recognition and respect are concrete, practical issues. We Jews tend to invalidate the experience and even the existence of anyone in the Jewish community who doesn't fit our conception of the "normal" Jew. Jews do not gamble, Jews are not alcoholics, Jews are not crazy, and Jews are not gay. Furthermore, Jews of a certain age are in happy, legal (both Jewishly and civilly) marriages with cisgendered cross-sex spouses and have smart, healthy, well-adjusted children who will grow up to make aliyah to Israel (and of course also be in happy,legal marriages with cisgendered cross-sex Jewish spouses). As long as we keep the conversation in theory, we're good. But this idea breaks down as soon as you go to a JACS meeting, or a NUJLS event, or meet the nice non-Jewish transmasculine partner of your son.

But it seems to me that people who attended or even read or heard about this event at YU have met out Jewish Orthodox gay men and ignored their experiences in favor of using the idea of their experiences to spark conversation that serves their own agenda. So, while I admire the progress that led to the event, it's hard for me to consider the event a success.