The new Jews of L.A.: Jewish LGBT group says there’s no need to be L.A. confidential

Despite the image of Los Angeles as an open-minded, anything-goes environment, JQ International is on hand to help young Jews come out of the closet.

By Allison Kaplan Sommer for Haaretz

When Asher Gellis realized he was gay, he was pretty sure it would be the beginning of the end of his involvement in the organized Los Angeles Jewish community.

“I felt that one day I was going to have to make a choice between being gay and being Jewish. I just didn’t see those worlds ever coming together in any kind of healthy fashion,” says Gellis, who notes that he was raised with a “wonderful” education, was very active in his synagogue and youth group, attended Jewish summer camp and visited Israel many times.

Acceptance at home wasn’t an issue. Gellis’ brother is also gay, and the two siblings chose to come out at the same time “because we didn’t want to give our parents two separate heart attacks,” Gellis says.

Though their parents hugged them and accepted their orientation almost immediately, their mother cried. She figured her sons would never get married or have children.

“I told her that I was dating someone,” Gellis recalls. “Her tears evaporated and she looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Is he Jewish?’”

But, as Gellis expected, finding his place as an openly gay young man in the organized Jewish community, even one as large, diverse and liberal as the L.A. incarnation, proved a challenge. He tried some of the gay synagogues and organizations, but couldn’t find a setting where he really fit in.

So, in 2005, he decided to create one for himself. “I got together with my friends and we just started doing gay Jewish programming for people in their 20s,” he says. “We didn’t really know what we were doing; it was just an experiment. But by the end of the year we had hundreds of people coming.”

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