By Schneur Friedman and Hayley Goldberg
Who We Are
Amidst the tempest of media and letters surrounding Hareni – YU’s Official club by LGBTQ+ for LGBTQ+ students – our new club was the topic of an episode of halachic headlines. The guests of the show held a variety of opinions.
Yet, all agreed on one thing: The Modern Orthodox community is failing its LGBTQ+ members. Stories of alienation, abandonment, suicide and people leaving the Jewish community as a whole howl in our ears, drowning out the approaching footsteps of Moshiach. These are hundreds of lives – hundreds of tragedies. Year after year.
For those with eyes, this is no revelation. For those with hearts to feel, this cannot persist. For those with minds to think, things must change.
The Question is: How? Many well-meaning rebbeim struggle with how to approach their LGBTQ+ students, community members and loved ones from a halachic perspective.
Our proposal is simple: The halachic questions are valid, but they are not the issue at hand; the primary focus regarding the basic ways in which we as a community treat our queer members ought to be hashkafic and social. The reality is that as much as they might hold strong opinions, universities, clubs, presidents and roshei yeshiva do not determine how individuals, straight or gay, trans or cis, approach halacha – the individuals themselves do.
What we can do, what we will do and what we must do is ensure that every LGBTQ+ Jew is safe, has a sense of wellbeing, a sense of belonging and can live to their fullest potential. Simply put, before a person can pose halachic questions, they must be able to feel safe in their community, they must have a sense of well-being and they must still be alive.
Many have spoken of a club as a venue for chizuk – inspiration, support, encouragement. We couldn’t agree more. LGBTQ+ Jews at YU and beyond are often discouraged by dehumanizing rhetoric, verbal abuse, physical violence and a culture of permissibility towards all these. Even well-intentioned efforts at “encouragement,” as much as they move in the right direction, often reduce us to specimens to be pitied and condescended to. Queer Jews are all too often exiled to a ghetto of unfortunate souls facing a test, to be tossed tepid kindness over the shoulder. But isn’t the life of every Jew, of every human, defined by tests? When one forgets this and reduces the humanity of queer Jews, they forget their place in G-d’s creation and reduce their own humanity as well.
In the name of the holy Baal Shem Tov, the Alter Rebbe taught us that one must exercise Mesiras Nefesh, self-sacrifice, for Ahavas Yisroel, even for a Jew one has never met. But you have met us.
We fill your Batei Medreshim, your shuls, your homes, your classrooms, your tables and your chairs; we always have and forever shall. We crossed the sea with you, we built both temples with you and shall fill the third. Yet we don’t demand self-sacrifice. We demand the bare minimum – the respect, decency and trust which others don’t have to demand. Now for the first time ever, we have the opportunity to build something together – in partnership. Hareni is a chance for YU to not only live up to its values but to lead with them.
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This is a complex issue, yet it begins with the simplest of matters, with the declaration:
“Hareni mekabel alai mitzvas asei shel v’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha.”
“I hereby undertake to fulfill the positive commandment to love your fellow as yourself.”
What We Are
After years of fighting, we have an official club for the LGBTQ+ students at YU. This will not be taken for granted. As a club, we plan to hold social events just as every club at this university has the right to. After all, we are to “operate consistent with all other student clubs at the University,” and “will not be required to submit to any approval or oversight procedures that are not required for all student clubs.”
What does this mean for us? As a group, our biggest hope is to create a safe environment and community for anyone at YU, especially those who identify within the LGBTQ+ community. If building a community means having game nights, art events, pizza parties or any other social event, we want to be able to host it just as all other clubs do. This club is for the students enjoyment within an environment where they may feel outcast otherwise.
What we will not be doing as a club is writing the egregious statement, “This club is for students who seek to fully maintain traditional halachic standards of sexual morality as defined by the Shulchan Aruch” on our posters and communications. Equating an identity with sexual immorality looks past us as a people. This statement sexualizes students and forgets every other aspect of them as a person. It reduces complex individuals to a single dimension, stripping them of their intellect, character, contributions to our community, and their spiritual journey. To imply that an identity poses a threat to halachic morality is not only inaccurate but harmful. It fosters a culture of exclusion, judgement and shame rather than building one of compassion, learning, and mutual respect.
As a club that seeks to build a space for thoughtful dialogue, inclusion and growth, we refuse to participate in rhetoric that dehumanizes or marginalizes members of our community. Other clubs have not been asked if they are halachically pure. Maybe because they are presumed straight. If so, this is a double standard which we will no longer accept. Other clubs are not scrutinized and held to the same standards of religious justification as Hareni has been in its very short existence.
Hareni is a new beginning. A new potential for all of us to prove how great of a nation we are when standing together. This club will be a home for all Jews – LGBTQ+ or otherwise – to thrive.
With hope for redemption and love for all,
Schneur Friedman and Hayley Goldberg
Co-Presidents of Hareni — the first of many to come IYH
Photo Caption: The Hareni club logo
Photo Credit: Tani Glaser