By Shira Kramer, Managing Editor
A joint statement by both Yeshiva University’s Pride Alliance (YUPA) and Yeshiva University was published today stating that a new club, known as “Hareni,” will be implemented on campus in order to provide support for LGBTQ+ students as well as their allies. The court case between the two parties has been ongoing since 2021.
That year, YUPA filed a lawsuit against YU, specifically university President Ari Berman and Vice Provost Chaim Nissel, in New York’s high court, citing discrimination against LGBTQ+ students for failing to recognize YUPA as an official university club. In 2022, when the New York appeals court ruled that YU had to recognize the club, the university froze funding for all clubs in response. Today, the legal battle has ended and YU has seemingly changed its tune.
“Current students will be implementing a club, to be known as Hareni, that will seek to support LGBTQ students and their allies and will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis,” the joint statement said. “The club will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture.”
Hanan Eisenman added that YUPA agreed to implement a club proposed by the YU in 2022. “We are pleased that our current undergraduate students will be leading a club announced today which is the same club approved by our senior rabbis two and a half years ago.”
In a text sent on the club’s WhatsApp group chat, previously used for YUPA, Schneur Friedman (YC ‘25) and Hayley Goldberg (SCW ‘27), Hareni Club Presidents and leaders on campus, said, “It is with great pleasure and excitement that we announce to everyone that we are now an official club at YU.” They continued, “Remember, whether you’re looking for support, new friends, or just a place to be yourself, you belong here!”
Dr. Sara Asher, Dean of Students, told the YU Observer that YU has worked in tandem with both students and rebbeim to create this new club. “Under student leadership, Hareni will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of YU’s Roshei Yeshiva as it seeks to support our LGBTQ students with planning for events,” Dean Asher told the YU Observer. “I am grateful as we move ahead together in the spirit of a unified campus culture.”
However, Dean Asher did not specify what guidelines Hareni will be expected to follow.
In 2022, YU announced the creation of a different club called “Kol Yisrael Areivim” which the university said would be “grounded in Halacha and Torah values to support its LGBTQ undergraduates.” The club, however, was met with frustration from the Pride Alliance, which claimed that the university created the club without any student input from leaders of YUPA and that it did not meet YUPA’s goals of creating a safe, supportive space for LGBTQ+ students.
A press release stating Hareni’s future plans and their excitement for this advance was sent to the YU Observer by Zak Sawyer, a communications representative for the club. “The agreement follows years of legal battles between the university and LGBTQ+ students seeking recognition and greater inclusion on campus. By recognizing Hareni as an official student club, the university affirms the importance of providing a safe and supportive space for LGBTQ+ students,” Hareni told the YU Observer. “This resolution ensures that all students can fully participate in campus life while respecting the university’s values and traditions, demonstrating that Jewish and LGBTQ+ identities can coexist within a welcoming academic environment.”
According to the release, Hareni will be allowed the same resources as all other clubs including the ability to sponsor events, access to university resources such as student fairs and event spaces, and the ability to independently choose the leaders of the club. Additionally, Hareni will be allowed to use LGBTQ+ terminology on flyers and other communications.
Katherine Rosenfeld, partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, the firm that represented the plaintiffs, told the YU Observer that this agreement is a critical advance for LGBTQ+ rights in faith-based institutions. “The creation of Hareni is a testament to the power of students speaking out for dignity and equal treatment. It ensures that LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University have a recognized place on campus and can fully participate in university life just like their peers,” she said.
“This is a cause for celebration not just for these students, but for the ability to create spaces where all students can participate in campus life,” she added.
Max Selver, Associate at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, told the YU Observer, “Our clients embody the courage it takes to stand up for equal treatment on campus.” He continued, “This agreement is an important step toward ensuring that LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University have a place to gather, support one another, and fully participate in campus life.”
Friedman and Goldberg also recognized the monumentality of this step. “This victory is not just for our club – it’s for every student who deserves a safe space to be themselves,” Goldberg told the YU Observer. “I’m excited to move forward, build community, and continue advocating for a school where everyone belongs.”
Friedman added, “This agreement affirms that LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University are valued members of the community. We are grateful to G-d and all those who stood with us in our fight for progress, equality and understanding.”
After years of fighting for this cause, the release said, the plaintiffs have finally found some relief. “This agreement represents a monumental victory for LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University,” Plaintiff Mal Meisels (YU ‘21) told the YU Observer. “I am relieved that subsequent generations of Yeshiva University students will receive the communal and institutional support that we never did.”
Within the days since the announcement, controversy and debate has overrun the university as to whether Hareni was meant to be the same as the 2022 YU initiated “Kol Yisrael Areivim” club as opposed to a new, different supportive club for members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.
Because of this confusion, both President Ari Berman and Rav Hershel Schachter, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), wrote messages to the YU community on their stances. They reassured the community that they would never back a pro-LGBTQ+ club on YU’s campus.
“The Yeshiva has always conveyed that what a Pride club represents is antithetical to the undergraduate program in which the traditional view of marriage and genders being determined at birth are transmitted,” Rabbi Berman said in a statement on March 25. “The Yeshiva never could and never would sanction such an undergraduate club and it is due to this that we entered litigation.”
He added that the new Hareni club was established to “support students who are striving to live authentic, uncompromising halakhic lives.” His email does not mention supporting LGBTQ+ students specifically.
“The undergraduate experience at Yeshiva is intentionally designed to be an intensely religious one during the formative years of our students’ lives,” President Berman stated. “Its foundational purpose is to faithfully transmit our multi millennial biblical and halachic tradition to enable our students to integrate their faith and practice in lives of contribution, impact and personal meaning.”
He added, “While each of our students choose their own path in their private lives, we will never fail to elucidate for them the ways of the Torah on all matters.”
Rabbi Schachter’s letter was not sent to the whole YU community, but was obtained by the YU Observer after several YU Roshei Yeshiva failed to respond to the YU Observer’s request for comment about the club. Rabbi Schachter began his letter by referring to the time when he was originally consulted about the dispute over the club two years ago; he said that that then, he gave his blessing to the YU run initiative aiming to help students who are “struggling with problems of same sex attraction and gender identity.”
“My position, then as now, emphatically rejects the ideology, lifestyle and behaviors which the LGBTQ term represents,” Rabbi Shachter said in his letter obtained by the YU Observer on March 25. “My position, then as now, is that all relevant prohibitions (homosexual behavior, same-sex marriage, castration, etc.) obviously must be uncompromisingly upheld.”
He added that at the same time, “halachically legitimate” support should be provided to “struggling students” so that they can sustain their commitment to living halachic lifestyles.
“I gave my blessing to providing guidance and support in maintaining full, uncompromising shmeras ha-mitzvos (keeping of the mitzvos) – to this sacred gaol and nothing more,” Schachter stated.
Rabbi Shachter added that because of the immense confusion this new club has already caused, he believes that it should be canceled. “Experience has attested that allowing this initiative to take the form of a club has and continues to create confusion,” he added. “I very much regret that I did not previously recognize this factor.”
“Establishing any additional club in any orthodox institution will only add to that confusion and must be avoided,” Rabbi Shachter wrote.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on April 3 to include the statements of YU President Ari Berman and Rav Schachter.