Two stories in The JC with a thematic continuity:
[T]he Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam’s Orthodox Ashkenazi community was suspended this week after signing a declaration that homosexuals should learn to overcome their inclinations.
New York-based Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, who visits the Netherlands a few times a year, put his name to a declaration, signed by 180 Orthodox rabbis, educators and psychotherapists, stating that homosexuality is “not an acceptable lifestyle”.
Rejecting the notion that “a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire”, it says that “the only viable course of action that is consistent with the Torah is therapy and teshuvah [return to observance]”.
One of the listed signatories is Arthur Goldberg, co-director of JONAH.
Rabbi Ralbag said: “It is unheard of for a chief rabbi to express a halachic opinion or a Torah viewpoint and be suspended.”
But he was clear: “I am not going to resign and I am not going to recant.”
On Tuesday, the community’s head, Ronnie Eisenmann, said he “explicitly distanced” Dutch Jews from the declaration, apologising to “any person that might have been offended in any way”.
The community regretted that Rabbi Ralbag had signed and had decided to “temporarily relieve” him of his duties until he came to Amsterdam for discussions.
In the Amsterdam community, he added, “homosexuals are welcomed and all Jewish couples are accepted as full members so long as they are recognized as ‘couples’ under Dutch law”.
The proper outcome.
Closer to home, there’s a scandal brewing at the JFS:
JFS has provoked anger from parents and pupils by teaching sixth formers that homosexuality can be “cured”.
As part of the school’s Jewish studies curriculum, pupils are shown a website from the American group JONAH – Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality.
It promotes the idea that homosexuality can be “mitigated and potentially eliminated” and sends participants on retreats such as “Journey into Manhood”.
The JONAH website is introduced at the end of the textual study part of a lower sixth lesson on homosexuality and the Orthodox viewpoint.
Pupils have complained that, coming at the end of the lesson, there is no opportunity for debate and that the JONAH website was effectively presented as the authoritative statement of the Orthodox view.
One of the students at a recent lesson said: “We discussed whether someone chooses to be gay or not. Then there was the concluding voice of “the Jewish view”, where we looked at Orthodox Judaism, which condemns homosexuality.
“At the end, we were asked what we thought about religious Jews who might hate themselves because their religion condemns being gay. The last slide on the PowerPoint was a picture and a link to the JONAH website, after we were discussing what gay Orthodox Jews can do, if they hate themselves.”
The student said there was no condemnation or discussion of the controversy around gay “conversion”, and no alternative group was mentioned. “I was appalled; it felt like it was saying, ‘If you are having doubts, check this out’.”
Another pupil who was in the lesson said: “If I were gay or worrying about my sexuality, sitting through that lesson, I would have been so upset. They could have advertised other organisations, which are not there to convert but to support whatever decision people want to make. I know most people were offended by it.”
The school appears to be in damage limitation mode:
JFS head teacher Jonathan Miller said the JONAH website was intended to illustrate the different Jewish perspectives on the issue. Mr Miller said: “It is absolutely not the case that we promote JONAH. The teaching materials explicitly state that Judaism would utterly condemn homophobia and discrimination.
He is right to be back-peddling furiously.
Here’s my view.
Religious groups have a perfect right to deem any practice or form of social arrangement “sinful”. This is an absolute foundation of secularism: that the state does not interfere in the private religious and spiritual beliefs of citizens. All that is asked of the religious, is that they do not actively incite hatred against other minorities, or to discriminate against them or harm them generally. It is absolutely unacceptable that a religious leader should teach that a state should be established, based on religious law, in which gays should be executed, for example.
Were I a member of Amsterdam’s Orthodox Ashkenazi community, I’d no doubt back those who suspended their Chief Rabbi. I’m supportive of that suspension. However, ultimately, this is a matter for that community. Were they to have reached a different conclusion, there would be nothing stopping those who disagreed from forming their own religious and community group.
When it comes to the JFS, a different set of considerations apply. This is a publicly funded institution. If you accept money from the state, you must not use it to teach that gays should be “cured”. It is that simple.
Credit to those students who blew the whistle on this scandal.
