Coalition for Jewish Values, representing more than 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, expressed shock and dismay at the recent announcement by Yeshiva University that it will host an LGBTQ+ club on its undergraduate campus. This decision followed nearly four years of litigation during which YU strove to establish its legal right, as a religious institution, not to support such a group.
A yeshivah is a traditional rabbinical school in Orthodox Judaism, and Yeshiva University was founded as, and remains integrated with, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS). Yet according to the legal agreement negotiated by the parties, the club will host a large variety of events at YU and “will be permitted to use the term ‘LGBTQ’ in its public communications, flyers and advertisements.”
Furthermore, the club will not only be able to access funding and the use of on-campus facilities as a YU-recognized student organization, but it will be able to participate in student club fairs. Its events will have no further “approval or oversight procedures” beyond those of all other student clubs.
The rabbis find it objectionable that a college founded to serve Orthodox Jews and affiliated with a traditional yeshivah (rabbinic school) would host and endorse a club for students with same-sex attractions. This is due to the Torah’s prohibition of homosexual conduct, its exclusive promotion of marital relationships between a man and woman, and its rejection of the false notion that a person’s desires and preferences are immutable identity characteristics that are inherently legitimate and must be accepted by Jewish society. Numerous RIETS-affiliated rabbis, including current faculty, have expressed their dismay at the spectacle of YU appearing to convey legitimacy upon LGBTQ as an “identity” that a Torah institution should support.
“Having a club reserved for LGBTQ ‘persons and allies’ proclaims that LGBTQ desires and conduct have a place in a Torah-observant institution,” said CJV midwestern regional vice president Rabbi Ze’ev Smason. “Portraying this club as merely a ‘support group’ simply does not ring true, especially in light of the plaintiffs’ statements and public declarations by senior RIETS roshei yeshiva (rabbinical school deans), and, most tellingly, by the legal agreement that was negotiated and accepted by both parties. YU litigated for many years precisely because this conduct is not legitimate or appropriate.”
CJV vice president Rabbi Dov Fischer (RIETS, class of 1981) elaborated: “If it was the plan of Yeshiva University’s public relations professionals to have this chilul Hashem (desecration of God’s name) die down and fade away by breaking the news in between the Orthodox Jewish world’s Purim and Pesach activities, along with withholding full information from the public for two weeks after its announcement, be assured many of my fellow RIETS alumni will not allow this to pass quietly. We will not rest until this disgrace is remediated, and we hear from the leading Torah authorities at RIETS that they are satisfied.”