PHOTOS: Activists Launch Guerrilla Anti-Conversion-Therapy Campaign In Israel’s Orthodox Jewish Neighborhoods | Queerty

PHOTOS: Activists Launch Guerrilla Anti-Conversion-Therapy Campaign In Israel’s Orthodox Jewish Neighborhoods | Queerty.

The Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

The Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Testimony of Mordechai Levovitz to the NJ Senate

Testimony of Mordechai Levovitz, Co Executive Director, JQY
3/18/2013
New Jersey State Senate, Trenton NJ

My name is Mordechai Levovitz. I come from a very religious Jewish community and grew up in an Orthodox family. I have both personal experience with being sent to therapists as a minor to try to change my orientation and gender expression, and experience dealing with this issue as the co executive director of JQY, a non profit org that helps support LGBT Jews and their families in the Orthodox Community. I have seen and felt the harmful consequences of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, and the risks that this process poses to minors.

When I was about six years old my parents brought me to a therapist because they were concerned that I was acting too feminine. I played with Barbie’s, wanted cabbage patch kids, pretended I was a princess, and told people that I was really a girl. My parents, devout Orthodox Jews were horrified, confused and embarrassed. They wanted desperately for someone to tell them that I could be changed into a quote unquote “normal boy”. In their search for answers, they were told by religious leaders and even some doctors that I was a “Pre-Homosexual” and that “detecting” this early, is actually a good thing, because this was the time (when I was six) that “therapy” could be effective. Therapy to them, meant preventing me from ever turning gay, and making me into a normal masculine boy. So from the age of six I was sent to Dr after Dr. in the hopes of curing me from my “femininity” and wrong gender identification.

Obviously these forced interventions did not end up working. I am now gay man, I am still feminine, and sometimes I still pretend that I’m a princess. But there was one message that was made clear to me when being sent to these therapists. This was that the ‘professional mental health’ opinion was that there was something very wrong with who I was. I was made to feel by doctors there was something wrong with me. I was made to think that for me to be healthy, I must play sports, speak in a low voice, and keep my wrist from going limp. I didn’t want to do any of this. I was happy with the way I was. But in the name of professional mental health and the licensure of the state, I was made to feel shame and engage in a fruitless labor that left me sad and broken.

As I became an adult I promised that I could not stand idly by while this happened to other youth. I met other LGBT people who came from Orthodox communities like mine, many who also had the experience of being pressured into so called “reparative therapy”. We decided that we had to be there for each other. We started a group called JQY. JQY is a safe space where Jewish youth can come and feel support and acceptance for who they are. JQY now has over 700 members. As JQY grew, more and more Orthodox Jewish youth came forth to tell their stories.

What I heard and saw were many kids being pressured by their parents, schools and other therapists into organizations like JONAH and Journey into Manhood, that promise to change gay people straight. Often these minors were given ultimatums to engage in sexual orientation change efforts, or else they would be stripped of social privileges, or worse,  kicked out of their homes, schools and communities.

What was obvious is that there certainly was no real consent. These kids weren’t just targeted for therapy because of the rhetoric that early intervention is the supposed best time to treat homosexuals. They are targeted because they are easy targets. They have no choice, and they have no power. What is worse, is seemingly nobody to protect them.

I thought “Protection from harm” is the essence of professional health intervention. And make no mistake, Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, especially those forced on minors by therapists, can cause real harm. The truth is that there is no best practice or standards for what is mistakenly called “reparative” therapy. There are only therapists literally making things up in the name of this arbitrary process.

JQY members report being pressured to do terrible things by their therapists in these efforts. Some like Jon were asked to repeat biblical verses and punishments in therapy. Some were shown pictures of AIDS victims and made to read CDC statistics and symptom descriptions of things like Anal Cancer. Those who were sent to weekends like Journey Into Manhood report being pressured into strange behaviors like naked wrestling, name calling, forced red-rover, and the beating of effigies meant to symbolize ones parents.

More horrific were the reports from kids who were sent to an organization called JONAH, where they were sent to therapists who pressured their clients to undress and touch their genitals in front of their therapists. JONAH calls this practice “body work”, and defends it based on mental health principles. But their clients are left traumatized. They come to JQY depressed and sometimes suicidal. I worry most about the ones who don’t make it to JQY. I know of to many young people who have taken their lives after years of orientation change efforts that never worked, and caused irreparable harm.

I remember one of the worst feelings associated with being a minor in reparative therapy, was being blamed when the therapy does not work. For the message was that you can only change if you are truly committed to the process. It only works if you really work hard enough at it. So when it does not work, the implication is simply that you didn’t put the work in. Parents and schools get the impression that the youth is not really serious about change. In fact, he refuses to put in the effort in that is required. Because if not, he wouldn’t still be gay! This causes the worst harm because it tears families apart. It positions mothers and fathers against their children, and strips youth of the allies that they need most.

Honorable State Senators of the Great State of New Jersey,  I currently work for the United Nations NGO Committee for Human Rights. Freedom and rights are important to me. I respect the rights of adults who want to explore their orientation in non-traditional ways to engage in Consensual Sexual Orientation Change efforts. I respect the rights of an adults to seek a mental health professional for support in reconciling faith and desire. However, sending a minor to a therapist to work on changing orientation or gender identity is not a right. It is not consensual. It is not even an intervention. It is simply using professional licensure to tell perfectly healthy youth that there is something wrong with them.

As Toikko Kleppe from the United Nations Office of  the High Commissioner stated in an event at the UN last month on SOCE. “Professionalized Sexual Orientation change Efforts aimed at Minors is a violation of international Human rights.” It violates our medical ethics of “first do no harm”. It violates our values of informed consent, scientific integrity, professional responsibility, and any semblance of accountability.  It continues to violate minors in my Orthodox community, and it violated me. Please vote today to stop this violation. May we build a world where no child is made to feel like there is something wrong with them because of who they are.

Thank you,
Mordechai

Speech by Rabbi Paul Jacobson at Dayenu’s Mardi Gras Shabbat Dinner – March 1 2013

Speech by Rabbi Paul Jacobson at Dayenu’s Mardi Gras Shabbat Dinner, Friday 1st March 2013

Every night before going to sleep, my daughters, like other young children, delight in hearing lullabies. Their latest favourites include “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Ba Ba Black Sheep,” and “I Can Sing a Rainbow.” Admittedly, Lisa and I first thought that “I Can Sing a Rainbow” was an original tune from the popular children’s show Play School, but the lyrics are attributed to Arthur Hamilton, with the song having been written in 1955.

  Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue
  I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too
  Listen with your eyes, listen with your ears, and sing everything you see
  I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing along with me.

While the colours in Hamilton’s song are not necessarily the colours of the rainbow per se, the purpose of the song, when taught to children is to help them name colours, and appreciate the colourful brilliance that fills their world on a daily basis.

Such a reminder has great meaning for each of us. Just this morning, I sat at my computer, looking out the window at a dreary, gray, rain‐filled day. Listen with your eyes. Though there wasn’t much colour to be had in the sky, I still marveled at the different shades of green in the leafy trees outside my window, the way the different coloured buildings glistened in the endless drizzle. I even paused to notice the number of cars passing by on the street – blue, grey, black, silver, dark red, white, fire engine red – a rainbow of colours right before my eyes.

Listen with your ears. From moment to moment, the sound of the rain on the roof of the synagogue shifted and changed, sometimes more intense, sometimes less so. Sometimes the sound of the wind was audible and gusty, other times, calm and still.

And sing everything you see. Tonight, on our Mardi Gras Shabbat, we consider the symbol of the rainbow for other reasons. Since the 1970s, in celebration of the colours of life, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities throughout the world have used a rainbow flag as their symbol. The rainbow is a reminder of the diversity of both the LGBTI community, and of the beauty that can be present when people from all walks of life are embraced by and integrated into community, are respected for their differences, rather than distanced and excluded. The current version of the rainbow flag, also known as the freedom flag, contains six colours symbolizing different values – red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for harmony, and purple for spirit – all colours and values for which each of us strives to cherish, love and protect, day in and day out.

The image of a rainbow is also a powerful symbol in Jewish tradition. After creating the world and destroying it in a great deluge, God presents a rainbow as a sign of the eternal covenant with humanity. Nachmanides, in the 13th century, comments on the shape of the rainbow, saying that if it were an archer’s bow, the position of the bow would mean that the arrow would be pointing toward the heavens, rather than toward the earth. Nachmanides uses the symbol of the rainbow to teach us that God isn’t pointing any arrows toward us, and won’t destroy our world.

But somehow, we humans still have the power to do so much damage, to inflict so much hurt, to cause others unending pain. In lives that are filled with such colour, in lives where we are wowed and amazed by aesthetic magnificence, we still struggle to recognize the colourful brilliance that exists within our community and within each other. In lives that are filled with such colour, we find still that so many people are distanced and excluded from taking a rightful place in the Jewish community and politics still get in the way of love and marriage? In lives that begin with unconditional love, acceptance and being lullabied to sleep with images of beautiful colours, how is it that we learn to hate, to discriminate, and to hurt?

What if we were, instead, to see the rainbow of possibility that exists in each other, and through our words and our deeds, teach others to do similarly? Listen with your eyes and see the beauty, the loving heart, the thoughtful mind, the giving hands of each person in this room, all of us colourful in our own, special, unique ways. Listen with your ears and allow yourself the time to hear each other’s stories, to listen without prejudice, to listen without judgment, to stop and listen and accept, to recognize that there is more to be gained by including colours in the spectrum of our communities, rather than excluding them. And sing everything you see. The vision of Judaism, the vision of covenant, is that where everyone, no matter our differences, is recognized as being created in God’s image. The vision of Judaism, the vision of community is one where see there is abundant love in our congregation, our world, our tradition, love enough for everyone to feel welcomed, included, cherished, sanctified, and blessed.

  Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue… I can sing a rainbow,
  sing a rainbow, sing along with me.

AJN Letters: Response to Bialik joining SSCV – March 15, 2013

15 March 2013
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition

Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.


Note: the letters on this page refer to last week’s story Bialik to be a ‘safer’ school.


The importance of inclusion for all

MAZAL tov to Safe Schools Coalition Victoria Jewish schools The King David School, Sholem Aleichem College and now Bialik.

Safe Schools Coalition Victoria is a coalition of schools and individuals dedicated to creating safer educational environments where same sex attracted and gender questioning young people are supported, where every family can belong, where every teacher can teach and every student can learn. I am proud of these schools for taking this proactive step. As a lesbian parent, it means so much for my children to know that they are safe, secure and included at school.

SHAUNA SHERKER
Melbourne, Vic


All Jewish schools should be ‘safe’

WE welcome Bialik College as a new member of Safe Schools Coalition Victoria, in a week that also saw Geelong Grammar join us in showing their commitment to supporting diversity.

There are now 93 members of the coalition, from all sectors of the education system – government, independent, and religious. Our program works in partnership with the Department of Education and the Department of Health to actively support gender and sexual diversity in schools.

Research from Australia shows that it takes more than just general anti-bullying policies and practices to make schools truly inclusive. Increasing the visibility of gender and sexual diversity throughout the school, and inclusion across the curriculum, help to make young people feel not only safe, but able to be themselves.

We would love the opportunity to work with more Jewish schools to ensure that same sex attracted and gender diverse students, staff, and families that form part of all these school communities are not just free from bullying, but healthy and happy.

ROZ WARD
Coordinator,
Safe Schools Coalition Victoria


What Does the Future Hold for Gay Synagogues? | Tablet Magazine

What Does the Future Hold for Gay Synagogues? | Tablet Magazine.

AJN Letters: Response to the appointment of Mark Dreyfus as Attorney-General – February 15, 2013

15 February 2013
The Australian Jewish News Melbourne edition

Letters to the editor should be no more than 250 words and may be edited for length and content. Only letters sent to letters@jewishnews.net.au will be considered for publication. Please supply an address and daytime phone number for verification.


Commending Dreyfus

A HEARTY mazal tov on the appointment of Mark Dreyfus as federal Attorney-General.

I am heartened by his solid support for removing discrimination in the federal Marriage Act introduced under the Howard government in 2004, which purposefully prevents same-sex couples and intersex people from obtaining a civil marriage.

It is also reassuring that Dreyfus backs the inclusion of protections under proposed federal anti-discrimination legislation on the grounds of gender identity and sexuality.

These changes will greatly benefit the Jewish community by ensuring our families and children are better protected, less susceptible to discriminatory practices and able to celebrate loving, committed relationships on par with the rest of society.

MICHAEL BARNETT
Ashwood, Vic