Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Gay YU Panel Broadens Discussion, Debate
A standing-room-only public forum last week at Yeshiva University could take the discussion about gay Jews in the Orthodox community from a single meeting hall to the entire movement, focusing on the balance between empathy for individuals and the halachic ban on homosexual activity.
An estimated 600 to 800 people last week attended “Being Gay in the Modern Orthodox World,” a panel discussion on the university’s Washington Heights campus sponsored by YU’s year-old Tolerance Club and its Wurzweiler School of Social Work.
More than 100 people were turned away for lack of space, according to news reports.
The event, which featured gay students and alumni from the college, with YU administrators serving as moderator and post-panel commentator, focused on the participants’ personal stories rather than halachic or psychological issues regarding homosexual behavior.
And it appears to have widened a schism at the university between liberal and conservative elements, reflecting a division over homosexuality in the general Modern Orthodox community as to how much attention to give it and whether to cast it in a softer or harsher light.
Separate statements issued by President Richard Joel, and by leading members of the rabbinical school’s Talmudic faculty, distanced themselves from the event while not outright condemning it.
The program was the latest example of an internal debate that has taken place at the school for several years over the limits on acceptance of behavior condemned, according to leaders of the Orthodox community, by the Torah and Jewish law. And, as the most visible sign of a slowly increasing toleration within Modern Orthodoxy for largely isolated gay Jews, it may spark a further reexamination of Orthodox attitudes, say gay Jews with ties to the university.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a17590/News/New_York.html
An estimated 600 to 800 people last week attended “Being Gay in the Modern Orthodox World,” a panel discussion on the university’s Washington Heights campus sponsored by YU’s year-old Tolerance Club and its Wurzweiler School of Social Work.
More than 100 people were turned away for lack of space, according to news reports.
The event, which featured gay students and alumni from the college, with YU administrators serving as moderator and post-panel commentator, focused on the participants’ personal stories rather than halachic or psychological issues regarding homosexual behavior.
And it appears to have widened a schism at the university between liberal and conservative elements, reflecting a division over homosexuality in the general Modern Orthodox community as to how much attention to give it and whether to cast it in a softer or harsher light.
Separate statements issued by President Richard Joel, and by leading members of the rabbinical school’s Talmudic faculty, distanced themselves from the event while not outright condemning it.
The program was the latest example of an internal debate that has taken place at the school for several years over the limits on acceptance of behavior condemned, according to leaders of the Orthodox community, by the Torah and Jewish law. And, as the most visible sign of a slowly increasing toleration within Modern Orthodoxy for largely isolated gay Jews, it may spark a further reexamination of Orthodox attitudes, say gay Jews with ties to the university.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a17590/News/New_York.html
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