Orthodox Parents of LGBT Children Navigate Their Own Coming Out Process

A weekend retreat inspires advocacy for gay Orthodox Jews and creates a support network for families in religious communities

By Tova Ross for Tablet Magazine

It was telling that Eshel—the national organization offering community and programming for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews and their families in Orthodox communities—held its second annual retreat for Orthodox parents of LGBT children exactly a week before Purim. Like the themes of disguise that abound throughout Megillat Esther—the invisible hand of God, whose name is not mentioned even once, and Esther herself, whose name is rooted in the Hebrew word for “hidden” and who must keep her Jewish identity under wraps—secrecy and seclusion were once familiar to many of the parents who attended Eshel’s retreat last weekend at the Capital Retreat Center in Waynesboro, Pa.

When Baltimore resident Mindy Dickler’s son Elie came out to her while home from college for Rosh Hashanah in 2011, her first reaction was shock. Though she soon came to a place of acceptance (“I realized that Elie was created b’tzelem elokim, in the image of God, like everybody else”), when she looked for resources for parents like her, she came up empty. “I saw major metro areas like New York and San Francisco with some resources and a more discernible population of Orthodox or otherwise Jewish parents of gay children,” she said, “but I couldn’t find any of that in Baltimore and felt really alone.” That is, until she found Eshel—a group founded in 2010 whose name refers to the biblical shrub with bright red flowers planted by Abraham to signal to parched travelers that a welcoming tent was nearby.

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