She was born and educated in a haredi community, and felt she was different ever since she was young. After refusing an arranged marriage, ‘Raheli’ decided to come out and tell her parents about her orientation. Today she lives with a woman and even plans to marry her.
About seven years ago I began anonymously publishing stories on an online forum for gay writers. The combination of the site’s obscurity and its blessed anonymity created a safe space in the complicated reality of life in the closet. Together we coped with dilemmas and hardships, and the feeling of solidarity made us feel less alone.
After a few months we decided to leave the walls of the internet and scheduled a meeting in public. The meeting itself was not particularly exciting and I have forgotten it. Most of the forum members did not surprise me or change what I thought about them, until she arrived. She apologized for being late and introduced herself humorously straight away.
She explained that the long skirt was not a courageous fashion statement in the middle of summer. That is, she was a lesbian and haredi.
I wanted to ask her a million questions, but I didn’t know exactly where to start, so I just listened from the sidelines. I read her stories again after the meeting. They dealt with her inability to consummate her love for a woman. She didn’t write what was preventing her from living as she wanted, but it was obvious that there was a powerful force preventing her from and her beloved from being together.
Over the years, the meetings petered out and we lost touch, but this week I ran into her online again. I saw how she defended the community against haredi commenters and stuck up for Judaism against belligerent secular people.
I got in touch with her and this time, I gathered my course and wasn’t too shy to ask questions.
Raheli (not her real name), 27, the eldest of seven siblings, grew up and was educated in haredi settings in a small city in central Israel. She told me she always felt something was different about her.
“As a child it was easy to understand exactly who and what I was,” she said. “I wasn’t exactly like the other girls, but I also didn’t know how to put it in words. When I was a little girl I played soccer with the neighborhood boys and spend a lot of time with them. When I was 12 they separated me from the boys, because that’s the age that you begin to become a young woman, and a young woman must be modest.”
“I no longer has male friends at that point, but I also didn’t have thoughts about men and I wasn’t interested in them like a regular pubescent girl,” Raheli continued. “Ultimately, when I turned 18, my father realized he needed to search for a match for me and I got engaged very quickly.”
Did you want to get married?
“I had a lot of deliberations about the wedding. One on hand, I felt that something wasn’t right with me. I didn’t know I was a lesbian, but I had relationships with very close female friends and that felt right, that felt safe. On the other hand, I was about to finish 12th grade and my whole life I was taught that a young woman my age needs to get married and that married life is what’s right, and that’s the way of the Torah.”
You mentioned deliberations about the wedding. What ended up deciding the matter?
“The closer I got to the date of the wedding, I felt worse. I talked with one of my teachers and shared my difficulty with her. She promised to help me and see what could be done. A month before the wedding I was referred to be treated by a great rabbi from Bnei Brak. I went with my parents and he told me we had to cancel, if that was the situation. When we got home, that very same day I told my dad: ‘I’m going to be a single mother.’ I didn’t say anything or think about women. I only said I didn’t see myself getting married to a man and raising children with him.”
And how did he respond?
“We didn’t really talk about it, but I felt very uncomfortable for him and also our whole environment. My father is a public figure and people know him, and it had already been published in newsletters that his daughter was engaged and about to get married. My mother was actually happy about the wedding’s cancelation. She was not shy about thinking it wasn’t for me and not the best path for me.”
Did you tell your mother about the deliberations?
“At the time I knew the woman who is today my fiancée, and God willing, will be my wife next month. I began working after the end of 12th grade and that’s where I met her. She comes from the same background as me and we were friends for two years before we started going out. She was already with someone before and knew about herself. And I understood her – how the connection is different, how the embrace is different. She started coming to visit me at my parents’ house more and more, and after a while my mother asked, ‘What’s the nature of the relationship?’ and I told her the truth. She started crying, but after that she was happy I had love and even encouraged me in times of fights and crises in the relationship.”
How’s the relationship with your parents today? Will they come to the wedding?
“I never talked about it with my dad. We didn’t say too much and certainly not explicitly. I didn’t say: ‘I am a lesbian and in a relationship with a woman,’ but it was understood that he knew and was in denial. He was afraid to confirm it to himself. Today the relationship is better than what it was six or seven years ago, when I was already in a relationship with a woman and my father understood it was final.
“One time he came home with his students, and at the same moment I sat on my friend in the living room. He started getting irate, and we where afraid that he would become violent, so she ran to the bedroom, and in the meanwhile my brothers formed a barrier around us and tried to calm him down. After that I went to live with my aunt, and since then I haven’t been home. I began working at another job, and after awhile I moved into my own apartment in the same city. Concurrently, my girlfriend left her families house after she came out. She moved in with me, and we have lived together since then.”
After a year of disconnect, my family called me, and we began speaking again. They wanted me to come over for Shabbat, but I vetoed that idea. If my girlfriend cant come then neither can I. That’s how it was with her family too. In the end we reached an agreement, but my father asked that we leave the city. He is afraid of the future, he doesn’t want people to see me walking around with a belly, and have people talking about me, he won’t come to the wedding. I also don’t want him to come to the wedding. It won’t be a haredi wedding, so he has nothing to find there.”
“My mom told me that she is sorry for me, that it is hard for her to accept the shame that comes with the whole city knowing. She doesn’t know how to accept the fact that It will be official. I told her: If you aren’t whole with your decision – don’t come. I want everything to be whole at my wedding, I want to be happy. To celebrate our love. And whoever is not there to rejoice – don’t come.”
How does Judaism view lesbians?
“I looked through the whole torah, and Judaism doesn’t comment on lesbians directly. Jewish law belittles the issue. There are a few rabbis who claim that it is banned on the basis of modesty. My whole life I learned in Haredi institutions, and I was taught to anything that I could. Don’t stop everything if you can’t do one thing. There is a verse that says that even the righteous sin. Do what you can, nothing is black or white.
Have you encountered resistance or intolerance from your environment?
“My father is a public figure, so of course I help him with what he needs, with collection of funds and holidays. And he even asks me to help and wants me to come to events. He doesn’t hide me. And my girlfriend goes everywhere with me, but no one says anything, they don’t talk about it, they don’t ask questions. They know and accept it. I don’t come with her and say, “this is my partner,” but I assume they understand. Sometimes a lack of acceptance is a kind of acceptance if they respect us.”
Have you thought about moving to Tel Aviv?
“I’m against running away to Tel Aviv, and I call it running away because this is actually where it’s important to show that there’s a gay community. I’m not trying to spite anyone, not hurting anyone, not kissing in the street out of modesty. And I expect the same respect. I am the only haredi in the area who knows she’s a lesbian. All the rest ran away and left the religion. And that is what’s comfortable for haredis to think: ‘She’s crazy, she’s not right, that’s why she ran away to Tel Aviv’.
“After all, if you leave, you’re showing them that the only way to be gay or lesbian is to run away. I think we need to change the environment. It’s important to stay and speak out particularly in places like ours, for them to see that we exist and we’re not perverted or insane. Now there’s an argument about whether or not to hold a parade in Rishon LeTzion and there was an argument in Ashdod and cancellations in Be’er Sheva. It’s actually in these places that it’s most important to be gay, and running away to Tel Aviv will not change anything. In Tel Aviv you may be more comfortable, but my kids won’t be comfortable – if they learn that you need to run away to be who you are.”
What’s your opinion about haredi media outlets’ handling of the murder at the pride parade (which they called “the abomination parade”)?
“There are some groups within the haredi world that seek to incite in order to get attention. Not everyone is like that. Most of the haredi public does not incite. There are no references to it, no one talks about it, they don’t teach these things – they barely talk about relations between a man and a woman, and even that is only before the wedding. If someone is discovered as gay, they want to exclude him, and tell him not to be here. They try to sweep it under the rug.
“When is it discussed? Usually it involves pride parade, especially in Jerusalem. They associate the parade with underwear and dancing on trucks, and they don’t want to see that in Jerusalem. Saying ‘abomination’ is the haredis’ way to distance it from themselves, to say, ‘this doesn’t have to do with us, it’s an abomination’. And the word itself came from the Torah and my father might use that word.
“The haredis call it abomination because they don’t want to give it a place, and because they are afraid children will learn from it. They are fighting a battle for the Torah as far as they’re concerned, which is exactly the same war as that against opening parking lots on Shabbat.
“But it shouldn’t reach the point of violence and murder. Lawless bloodshed is not the way of the Torah. Most of the haredi world is opposed to the violence that occurred at the Jerusalem pride parade. There are a few radical rabbis seeking exposure and an audience, but they are not typical.
“Just as there are rabbis who send people for conversion therapy, there are also rabbis who don’t encourage marrying a woman if you’re gay. Because as far as they’re concerned, you don’t choose who to love. Love does not contradict Judaism.”
We should never deliberately do anything with the intention of hurting them. We should also never turn away from the word of God to satisfy popular opinion. It is not a difficult needle to thread. You can honor God’s will and love gay people, but you cannot rewrite the Scriptures and plausibly claim to be Jewish. If God is wrong about homosexuality – or anything else – then Judaism is primitive superstition. If God is right (and He is..that’s why He’s God), then homosexuality is wrong and presenting it as being an acceptable alternative lifestyle is a craven capitulation to modern conformity.
So many self-described religious people are eager to sacrifice their theology at the altar of public opinion. Religion does not exist for dilettantes to sway with the breeze.
A difficult topic for sure. What exactly is homosexuality? Is it when a straight man or women has sex with the same gender because the opposite gender wasn’t available? Ie in prison?
We can show mercy toward the gay community without compromising. Marriage by design was created for man with woman.
I agree that Jews still get persecuted more than gays. For gays it is because of what they do – which could take years before it is revealed. For Jews it is because of who we are – which can put us at risk even before birth.
We shouldn’t condemn these people. They get enough condemnation from other people and religions.
And what exactly is your interpretation of “condemning men doing with men as one does with women”? It is almost impossible for a declaration to be less ambiguous. God unequivocally forbade homosexuality.
If you have decided that the Lord lacks your wisdom and you desire to improve upon Scripture, feel free. But spare us the sophistry. God’s intention is crystal clear.
@ David Lloyd Klepper:Excellent. I support traditional marriage as between a man and a woman. If same sex couples want to form a union and get the same benefits from the government, they should be able to do so. Their union should be formalized but it should not be called a marriage.
Homosexuality is NOT specifically condemned in the TANA”KH or TORAH AL PE because the word is not translated in any of these sacred books. What are specifically condemned are two men sleeping together in the same bed, men doing with men as one does with women, and trans-sexual clothing. But a loving same-sex relationship is not condemned, and the relationship between to-be-King David and Prince Jonathan is presented without any negative comments. There are plenty of ways for people to show love for each other without violating Torah prohibitions. Giving back-rubs, hugs, even showers together can be physical expressions of love. But often two people studying Torah together can find spiritual connections that make physical expression unnecessary. And people should not ask questions about two people living together. If they are sinning, it is without witnesses, except for the Eternal, who is the final judge. A same-sex marriage cannot really be a Jewish marriage. There should be a different ritual, a commitment ceremony, which could have wide applicability for many situations and could involve receiving the three-fold blessing under the same tallith, and/or lighting Shabbat or Yom Tov candles together.
“So what” is the posed question. An answer to that question
can be found in Shaar HaGilgulim (Kitvey HaARI and from those who can and do fix such things, it is this: its a consequence of
previous “errors” AND a way to fix those errors by not giving in to such “feelings”. How to find those who can fix those previous “errors”? Just as written of these daZe, such great ones will be forced to be hidden from the many, due to the ways of the many; and that as R. Shimon bar Yochai said, the level of the (sparks) of souls present in the world will be the scrapings of filth from the bottom of the feet of Adam. Also that its required of each Jewish (male) soul to work on himself to the point where he knows by himself his shoresh Nefesh and history of his gilgulim, not only to learn (not obsess on) the gamara. Each male soul is given 3 attempts to improve, if it does not then its sent to abadon for destruction. This is the short version of an answer to the question posed “so what”. So either improve, even beyond emotions, or destruction awaits …..
Be nimble, Arnold!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_We20_2x2sc
@ babushka:
Actually, HaShem created chainsaws so we can walk down a path from our house to parked cars without getting slammed on our heads by falling dead branches. I guess I would think better of that if HaShem had made me a squirrel rather than an opinionated old man.
All things considered, I don’t want to feel obligated to form friendships with people merely because political correctitude dictates that we should be nice to sexual perverts, who have been treated with studied contempt throughout the ages of humankind. But Jews in general have gotten much worse treatment than homosexuals, and even so, I don’t take kindly to people sucking around me just because they think that politeness dictates they should feel sorry about all that.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ babushka:
It is sad. But some people end up in a mess because religion (not scripture) turns them away from God. Hope that in time she finds her way.
Bear Klein Said:
Go ahead raise me.
@ Dandaman: Why only ten shekels? It is Ynet!
Knowing the source (YNET) here’s ten shekels they made it up.
And adulterers? There is a compelling case to be made that adulterers are not only sexual miscreants, but also recreationally cruel. I would rather be around a homosexual than an adulterer for the previously stated reason: homosexuality is not inherently malicious, whereas adultery is the basest form of betrayal.
If my late husband had cheated on me, he would be my late emasculated husband. My reading of the Torah is that God invented chainsaws specifically for the purpose of anatomically correcting men who cheat.
@ babushka:
I am kind to them, Babushka, in that I avoid their companionship of homosexuals; which means that they never have to suffer from any indignities stemming from knowing what I think of the way they live their lives. I think their practices are nothing more than sexual perversions. But I don’t feel sorry for them, in the way that I would feel sorry for blind people or victims of crimes. Instead, I think most of them purposely choose homosexuality. And if that is the case, they are truly responsible for choosing sexual perversion as a substitute for sexual normality.
And before I leave this topic: I decline to use the term “gay”, which in itself is a perversion of the standard English language. Instead, I describe them universally as homosexuals and regard them as sexual perverts. Like Donald Trump, I always have been an enemy of political correctness.
Don’t get me wrong about all this. I don’t let my mind get clouded up about homosexuality. All that I really want, if it could be achieved, is for all of them to get back into the closets in which they previously hid their perversions from normal humankind.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
She deserves sympathy and happiness. I hope she has a wonderful life. I do not believe that she should be allowed to marry another woman, and I base that belief upon the word of God…superstitious primitive that I am.
I for one am sympathetic to her. She deserves whatever happiness she can find. I don’t judge her. She handled her predicament in an honorable fashion.
One thing is for sure if this Lesbian Haredi woman had gone along with the arranged marriage it would have been one miserable marriage for both and probably any children that might have come along. No matter what you opinion or beliefs on homosexuality.
So she saved herself and the man she was arranged to be married to from a life of misery.
I hope that you are kind to gay people, Arnold. They are sinners, but so are we all. Save your hostility for people who are malicious.
@ babushka:
I’m neither chic nor righteous, but I have no room in my life for faggots of either sex, Jews or any other breed. That’s the way my tough old father Max Harris taught me, along with what I taught myself over 81 years. Am I prejudicial? You can all bet your asses that’s so. Do I care about the civil liberties of these freaks? The fact is, I couldn’t care less. I make and protect my own liberties, such as they are, and that suits me fine.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
God explicitly condemned homosexuality. That fact does not change merely because the world repudiates the Lord in favor of political correctness. Public opinion cannot veto the Almighty.
Love does not contradict Judaism, but homosexuality does. On this issue, you can be chic or you can be righteous. You can embrace the emerging modern consensus or you can embrace the word of God.
As always, most people are so consumed with arrogance that their only Supreme Being looks back at them from the mirror. They do not believe in the God of the bible. They create their own God in their own image.
Jewish law unequivocally states that homosexuality is forbidden, but increasingly Judaism is a convenience to be utilized only when expedient. In the name of “tolerance” and “compassion”, insufferably egocentric blasphemers edit God’s word to fit the current fashion. They would have you believe that Moses revealed The Ten Suggestions, or that the Torah is a “living document” suitable for periodic improvement.
If God is to be believed, you can be a Jew or you can be a lesbian, but not both. Unfortunately, on issues of faith, most people have relegated God to the back of the bus.