Oprah asks Shterna, Toby, Chaya and Brocha, four Hasidic women raisg 32 children between them, what would happen if a child were born gay. Fd out why they say this is a theoretil qutn.
Contents:
- THE GAY ORTHODOX UNRGROUND
- A YOUNG HASIDIC MAN LEADS A GAY DOUBLE LIFE BLACK HAT
- MY SECRET LIFE AS A GAY ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEW
- WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GAY TEEN IN A JEWISH ULTRA-ORTHODOX COMMUNY
- HASIDIC WOMAN FROM NETFLIX'S 'ONE OF US' COM OUT AS GAY
- MORN ORTHODOX JEWS ARE MOSTLY OBSERVANT, WEALTHY AND GAY-FRIENDLY
- WHY DID NETFLIX CUT ‘I’M GAY’ FROM DOCUMENTARY ABOUT EX-HASIDS?
- FILM EXAM STGGLE OF GAY ORTHODOX JEWS
THE GAY ORTHODOX UNRGROUND
* hasidic gay *
There is no official membership, and only a handful of people are willg to put their nam on support-group Ashkazy, a gay-rights activist and Orthodox Jew who liv New York Cy, says he has spoken wh over 200 gay Orthodox Jews over the past few years.
Filmmaker Sandi DuBowski, who produced and directed Tremblg Before G-d, terviewed hundreds of gay um (observant) Jews over the past few years for his movie.
A YOUNG HASIDIC MAN LEADS A GAY DOUBLE LIFE BLACK HAT
Open and Secret Support Groups In the New York area, home to the largt ncentratn of gay Orthodox Jews, at least four support groups have spng up to meet their needs. ’" The three founrs of the Gay and Lbian Yhiva Day School Alumni Associatn chose that name specifilly to attract a gay group wh an Orthodox background.
MY SECRET LIFE AS A GAY ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEW
The first Wt Coast support group was found Los Angel by "Jab, " a 54-year-old Orthodox gay Jew who had been married and livg a New York suburb until ten years ago, when he nfsed to his wife that he was gay. He started attendg an Orthodox synagogue, but was treated as a send-class member (he did not receive aliyot [he was not lled up to the Torah], for example) bee he was gay. The issu for Orthodox lbians are different than for Orthodox gay men, part bee the Torah do not specifilly prohib lbian sex.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A GAY TEEN IN A JEWISH ULTRA-ORTHODOX COMMUNY
Richard Isay, a gay New York-based psychoanalyst, timat that 15 to 20 percent of gay men marry women–bee they want to ny or "cure" their gayns, or want children, or to please their parents.
HASIDIC WOMAN FROM NETFLIX'S 'ONE OF US' COM OUT AS GAY
So, Shmuel (Adam Silver) leads a double life -- prayg at the synagogue and managg a dry cleang bs by day, and then traversg gay bars by night -- at least while his wife and children are out of town. Tremblg Before G-D, an 84-mute documentary film by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, troduc viewers to the troubled, nflicted world of gay and lbian Orthodox Jews who mt rencile their sexual inty wh their relig beliefs. The DVD versn of the film, recently released, clus special featur such as terviews wh the film’s director and a nversatn wh Rabbi Steve Greenberg (the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi), as well as leted scen and a look at the life-changg movement of the film.
The documentary is built around timately-told personal stori of gay and lbian Orthodox Jews who refe to give up their tradns. David, an orthodox gay man, me out to his Chabad Rabbi Israel who suggted David eat figs, try therapy and flick a bber band around his wrist every time he felt an attractn toward a man.
Refg to seek refuge more liberal Jewish circl, the Hasidim featured the film challenge the rabbis to rensir terpretatns of Jewish law to acmodate homosexualy. But the dialogue between the Jewish muny’s most relig gay and lbian Jews and their lear has begun — and so has the hope that, wh unrstandg, passn will follow.
MORN ORTHODOX JEWS ARE MOSTLY OBSERVANT, WEALTHY AND GAY-FRIENDLY
I was still at school when I first tried tellg a rabbi I was gay but all he said rponse was: "It's jt a phase, happens to a lot of girls.
" Here I found eply relig people tryg sperately to rencile their sexualy wh their fah visg wh openly gay people who fled the muny years ago and never looked back. I've met beard Hasidic rabbis who joed this unr a girl's name bee they are transgenr, and teens thst out of their hom for beg gay who don't know how to live the secular world.
He wrote rponse to lls at the time to ncel the sodomy law (which was ultimately ncelled only 1988, thanks to Shulam Aloni) I, as an Orthodox Rabbi, Support Legalizg Same-sex Marriage We Sharpened the Assailant's Knife In Their Own Words Livneh was neher ultra-Orthodox nor Orthodox, but rather a Jewish natnalist, yet his ma argument was that homosexualy is foreign to Judaism, nstut a foreign fluence by generate Wtern culture and should be the op-ed he claimed that for hundreds of years Jews the Diaspora succeed prervg their muni om those “sexual perversns, ” or as he phrased : “It is totally absurd to have suffered for many generatns the Diaspora, while strictly prervg, nurturg and refg the heterosexual prciple, only to return to the Land of Israel and renew the ‘gentil’ abomatn’ here.
WHY DID NETFLIX CUT ‘I’M GAY’ FROM DOCUMENTARY ABOUT EX-HASIDS?
”The history of homophobia fact prov that Livneh’s claim (which many Jews have upheld and still uphold to this day) is, if anythg, a “foreign fluence.
FILM EXAM STGGLE OF GAY ORTHODOX JEWS
” Throughout the morn perd natnalist homophob have claimed that homosexualy is nothg but a generative foreign cultural fluence on members of their people. For their part, the French nsired an English phenomenon: As late as 1991, French Prime Mister dh Crson said that homosexualy belongs to “the Anglo-Saxon tradn” and is foreign to the French Lat culture.
Israeli Print Ezer Weizmann, as is well-remembered, also said that there was homosexualy the Brish army but not the Palmach pre-state ia. Th the Nazis charged sexologist and gay rights activist Magn Hirschfeld that as a Jew he “brought the oriental vice to Germany.