The Jewish Standard, the 70-year-old New Jersey-based weekly for the circumcised, says it “set off a firestorm last week by publishing a same-sex couple’s announcement of their intent to marry.” Editors were surprised to hear so much feedback, and after chatting with a group of Orthodox rabbis, the paper wants to “apologize for any pain we may have caused.” And beginning immediately, there will be no more inches devoted to gay relationship announcements. And it was just moments ago we wondered aloud whether Orthodox Jews were coming around with the gays. Here’s the announcement that caused the rabbis to kivetch:
Congratulations to a periodical that serves a marginalized community in its goal of marginalizing — or rather, erasing — another. Now all the Jewish gay boys and girls can continue thinking your temple of worship has no place for them.
Cam
Fuck the Orthodox rabbi’s. As far as I’m concerned, when they have such far right views, i’m not seeing any difference between them and the Islamic clerics. So they can chew on that.
That said, I believe that Judism in America is the mainstreem religeon that has one of the highest levels of acceptance to gays. Just not in the Orthodox branch…..yet.
uu
Because I practise my iambic verse,
what follows will be quite restrained and terse:
let this remind you that humans are crap,
therefore make sure that in life you take care.
uu
Oh dammit, “humans” is stressed on the wrong syllable.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@Cam: May I say AMEN to that!!
I have older friends who are very active in the fight to have the Gay rights bill passed in NYC back in the 1980’s and they describe the battles they faced. The group that was the most vocal, hatefull, and anti-Gay? The orthodox Jews. They tell of them spewing the vilest most disgusting hatefilled diatribes at the public hearings of how Gays are not even worthy of life in this world. When AIDS sufferers would testify (remember this was the height of the AIDS nightmare) the orthodox would mock them telling them it was Gods punishment for being Gay and they need to hurry up and die hopefully a painfull death.
This is a group of people who only 40 years prior to that were subject to the most disgusting, hatefull,torturous acts of genocide ever to face members of the human race simply because another group didn’t like they way they lived their lives………..
Gary B.
As a Jew (though non-practicing, and certainly not orthodox), I find this very disappointing. I agree with the first poster that it’s the orthodox rabbis that aren’t accepting. Other than that, I honestly can’t remember ever meeting a homphobic Jew. Sure, growing up in America Jews are subject to the same kind of social conditioning everyone else is, but overall I find us to be a group of people with a lot of tolerances for differences.
Zen
Pain? People are ridiculous.
Mark
The orthodox rabbis are clearly hate-filled bigots. The Jewish Standard is run by contemptible cowards.
Jon (the other)
I guess pointing out that the overwhelming community is opposed to discrimination hit some nerve . . .or . . .perhaps it has to do with queerty co-opting other journalists without true representation.
Skyler
As a Jew, I’m not surprised, but not because Jews are intolerant (see comments above) but because Orthodox Jews are. They don’t just hate gays, Orthodox Jews hate everyone, including Reform/Liberal and Conservative/Masorti Jews, whom they often say aren’t real Jews because they’re both too liberal.
Enron
Man, these Jews forget history quick. Wasn’t it just the other day Hitler made 6 million human barbecues of the Jewish kind at a concentration camp in Germany? Not to mention Jesus was also persecuted by Jews.
They really need to do some self re-evaluation.
drewbrown
The only pain they caused was to gay people everywhere, who were just told “Oops, just kidding, we thought your relationships were valid for a split second, but we were wrong.”
Aaron in Honolulu
According to part of their mission statement it says:
“The Jewish Standard is not affiliated with any program, organization, movement, or point of view, but is dedicated to giving expression to all phases of Jewish life.”
If they are going to say they include ALL types of Jewish life, the least they could do is follow their freaking mission statement or take that shit down.
the crustybastard
Never again.
(Well, maybe for you.)
Cam
@the crustybastard:
OMG! I’m embarassed to say, but your comment made me burst out laughing even though it references a horrible time. Wow, I feel like a dick, but excellent dig at the Orthodox.
ait10101
@uu:
Yeh, tripped me up. Close call, in any case.
PC
I think the problem here is the numbers.
People tend to write more angry/hate mail than congratulatory/love mail to newspapers. So, even if hundreds of jews read that paper and thought “hurray” or “how sweet”, they didn’t bother to write in about it. I know I wouldn’t have. (I don’t like any announcements.)
Of course, the people who feel the other way send in their opinions. If all the Jews who liked (or didn’t care about) the gay engagement announcement wrote it, they might be able to sway the Standard’s editors to change their minds. Obviously, the editors listen to their readers/subscribers, and what drives all papers and magazines is subscription numbers and ad revenues.