How Many Gay Haredim Are Married to Women?

By Emily L. Hauser for The Jewish Daily Forward

What do you do if you’re ultra-Orthodox and gay? You almost certainly hide.

On Thursday, Israeli daily Yediot reported new figures released by religious-gay support group Hod indicating that “two-thirds of ultra-Orthodox homosexuals [in Israel] have chosen to marry women despite their sexual inclination”; almost all of the more than 1,100 men included in Hod’s report admitted to having sex with other men at least once a month.

According to Hod founder Ron Yosef, an Orthodox rabbi and gay activist:

The situation of homosexuals in the Haredi society is much more difficult because of the social isolation they live in. A gay Haredi man cannot share his situation with his friends in the community or the yeshiva, his family members or rabbis, and “coming out of the closet” is definitely inconceivable.

It should be noted that Hod’s statistics are based on information received from gay ultra-Orthodox men who turned to the organization for help — which is to say: They reflect a self-selecting population, men who have heard of the group and reached a level of stress, or degree of openness, that would allow them to reach out. It’s hard to know how much the two-thirds figure actually tells us about the lived reality of gay Haredi men, but then, that’s a community about which it would be particularly hard to produce solid polling results.

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Celebrate Israel with a Big Tent

By Arthur Slepian; Originally Published: June 2, 2014

Yesterday was the 50th annual Celebrate Israel Parade in New York City, with 35,000 people marching up Fifth Avenue in what is likely the single largest Jewish community event in North America.

A Wider Bridge was proud to be the lead organizer of the LGBTQ cluster in the parade, a set of organizations that also included groups such as JQY, Eshel, Keshet, and Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. This was the third year that Jewish LGBTQ groups marched openly and proudly in the parade.

Prior to that, we were excluded from participation, largely due to objections from New York City’s large Orthodox Jewish institutions. Bud sadly, the debate over who should be allowed to participate in the parade continues. Some are still angry that we, as open and proud LGBTQ Jews, are permitted to march. Yet this year the debate became even more heated over the participation in the parade by The New Israel Fund (NIF), which marched in the parade for the fourth consecutive year. NIF was falsely accused by a small group of protestors of being a supporter of the global movement to delegitimize Israel through Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Thankfully, the parade organizers were not swayed by the calls to exclude NIF or by those who wanted to exclude the LGBTQ groups from marching in the parade.

The protests against NIF and against an LGBTQ presence in the parade are not unrelated. We, like NIF, love Israel even as we work to support those organizations that are working to make Israel an even better, stronger, and more inclusive and pluralistic country. Israel is often celebrated for the rights and freedoms it provides its LGBTQ citizens. Many courageous Israeli leaders and activists have contributed to bringing about this progress, and many of the organizations most responsible for Israel’s strong record in this arena received some of their initial funding and support from The New Israel Fund. NIF continues to be a strong supporter of those working in Israel on behalf of its diverse LGBTQ communities, both secular and religious. We are proud to partner with NIF on many of our programs around the country.

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Pennsylvania Just Became Better for Same-Sex Families–And The Rest of Us

By Miriam Steinberg-Egeth for Raising Kvell

I was watching “Frozen” with my 3-year-old daughter when I heard the news: the Pennsylvania ban on same-sex marriage was overturned! My Facebook feed exploded with cries of “Mazel tov,” as well as, “Finally, PA,” and, “Welcome to the 21st Century.” This was big news, and not just in an abstract, I believe in equality and social justice kind of way. This was news with measurable impact on people I care about, news with the gravitas of, “I remember where I was when I found out.”

That means, I will always remember that I was watching “Frozen.” Disney’s latest blockbuster is being heralded by parents everywhere, even while they can’t stop singing, “Let it Go.” It’s notable for depicting princesses who defy the waiting-for-Prince Charming stereotypes, but it’s not quite defiant enough for my taste. One of the opening songs still has Princess Anna say, “What if I meet…the one?” I was as devoted a follower as anyone of “How I Met Your Mother,” so it’s not that I’m opposed to the concept of “the one” being portrayed in popular culture. Rather, I think that marriage doesn’t make sense as the primary plot device in a movie marketed towards kids who haven’t started kindergarten yet.

Even so, my daughter is no stranger to weddings, having already attended three in as many years. Last June, she attended the wedding of two of our family’s dear friends, and she talked about nothing for weeks before or after the celebration. Leading up to the wedding, we talked a lot about being quiet during the ceremony, giving gifts, and eating a special meal, but we made no mention of gender, even though the marriage was (and is!) between two women. To our then 2-year-old, a party was a party, and the particulars mattered not at all. Even now, even after seeing “Frozen,” when I asked her this afternoon, “What does ‘married’ mean?” she said, “It’s when people love each other.”

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Andrew Solomon: TED Talk

By Dennis Hinzmann for A Wider Bridge

Jewish author Andrew Solomon shares a motivational TED talk about being gay & different in America: ‘Gay People Deserve More, Collectively, Than the Crumbs of Justice’

Closing the TED Conference in Vancouver this year, author Andrew Solomon (a 2012 Out100 honoree) spoke about the hardships that he, and others he’s talked to while writing his books, had to endure while growing up. Solomon said that, rather than finding meaning in your struggle, you should forge it. He spoke openly about being bullied and ridiculed for being a strange, gay child.

In Far From the Tree, Solomon wrote about parents who raise children that face specific difficulties, and his book about depression, The Noonday Demon, won the National Book Award for non-fiction.

The crazy-popular TED event—which began as a conference for technology, entertainment, and design in the 1980s has evolved to cover numerous topics in more than 100 languages—focuses on the spreading of ideas, and its short talks have made many a person a pop culture sensation (such as Amanda Palmer’s polemic about crowdsourcing artistic endeavors). Solomon, one of our greatest writers and intellectuals, delivered one of the most moving, emotinally charged talks of this year’s conference.

Watch the TED Talk

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Canadian Jewish Book Awards Present Diverse Honor Roll

By Michael Kaminer for The Jewish Daily Forward

A chronicle of Nazi persecution of gay people, a study of Jews and obscenity, and a haunting artistic collaboration are among the wide-ranging winners of this year’s Canadian Jewish Book Awards. After an announcement last week, the awards will be presented at a May 27 ceremony in Toronto.

With its other accolades for a Holocaust diary, a poetic history of Salonika’s Jews, and a novel about Jewish immigrants in South Africa, this year’s honor roll defies easy categorization. “It was an excellent year for Jewish books,” said Natalie Kertes, director of literary programs at Toronto’s Koffler Centre of the Arts, which runs the awards.

The common thread binding 2014’s far-flung winners? “Superb writing,” said Kertes, who also oversees this month’s Toronto Jewish Literary Festival. “It’s often easy to conflate a great story or theme or strong research with really strong writing. It’s really exciting to be able to say that all of the winners this year are exceptionally written, in addition to having strong content.”

What the prize-winners don’t all share, however, is Jewishness. And Ken Setterington, author of “Branded by the Pink Triangle” (Second Story Press), said the award has even more meaning for him as a result.

“I was certainly surprised to receive the honor but, to be quite honest, delighted,” Setterington told the Forward. “My book tells the story of the men who were persecuted in the Holocaust because of their sexuality, not their religion. My challenge was not to compare the numbers or the suffering of the men in comparison to the Jews, or any other persecuted group, but rather to make readers aware that homosexuals were persecuted. It is for that reason that I was thrilled to receive a Jewish prize.”

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