A statement from The Jewish Standard
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PrintWe set off a firestorm last week by publishing a same-sex couple’s announcement of their intent to marry. Given the tenor of the times, we did not expect the volume of comments we have received, many of them against our decision to run the announcement, but many supportive as well.
A group of rabbis has reached out to us and conveyed the deep sensitivities within the traditional/Orthodox community to this issue. Our subsequent discussions with representatives from that community have made us aware that publication of the announcement caused pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused.
The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.
Flag CommentThis editorial decision is insulting to those who were overjoyed by the celebration of a beautiful life-cycle event. A non-ideological newspaper should report, not place value decisions on events in the Jewish community. Moreover, the desire to please those who have experienced “pain and consternation” causes even greater pain for those who are gay and their friends and family. It hurts much more to know that we are not welcome in the Northern Jersey Jewish community by the standards of this paper.
How disapointing for this publication, one where I always felt at home reading about this accepting Jewish faith. You have lost a faithful reader in me and believer that Jews are some of the most compassionate people on Earth, especially because of our past plight. To say the least, I am extremely saddened, disapointed and disheartened by my own people and our religious and supposed moral leaders.
Wow
This is just plain disappointing. A paper that claims to represent the Jewish community bowing down to the pressure of one group, while spitting in the face of the other. This is not how to resolve conflicts and will only further suppress dialogue on this issue if we cant even read about it in our daily newspaper.
Hopefully these days will be behind us soon…..
you should be ashamed of yourselves, cow towing to a bunch of BIGOTS. I will indeed encourage people to take a pass on this publication, because Bigots suck and that is what this mag has reduced itself to-a bigoted disgusting Piece fo garbage.
How does it draw the community together to exclude the marriages of many members from public acknowledgment? I wholeheartedly agree with Matthew Melzer
If the paper doesn’t count gay and lesbian Jews as members, so be it. But don’t pretend hat this solution is uncontroversial, or does not cause pain. You’ve just chosen the prejudices and discomfort of one segment of the community over the simchas of another.
I am dismayed that a newspaper which seeks to be a voice for the ENTIRE Jewish community in Northern New Jersey, not just for “a group of rabbis within the traditional/Orthodox community,” would make such an unjust editorial decision. I was initially quite proud that The Jewish Standard was among the first Jewish newspapers in the country to publish a simcha announcement for a same-sex couple. Presenting an inclusive portrait of Jewish community in which we affirm the humanity and dignity of every Jew embodies the Jewish value of b’tzelem elohim, the notion that people are created in the divine image of God. What a shame that gay and lesbian Jews will open up the pages of The Jewish Standard and be told that there is no place for them here. How terribly painful to send a message to those who are leading meaningful Jewish lives that their love is not worthy of communal recognition. These messages are hurtful, mean-spirited, and very un-Jewish. I would hope that a Jewish paper would know that the Jewish community is, and always has been, strengthened by its diversity.
Some “traditional/Orthodox” Jews experienced “pain and consternation” in reading a wedding announcement of a couple who just happened to be of the same sex? These people had no connection with the couple whatsoever and their marriage had no effect on them or their lives whatsoever. Given that absolute lack of any meaningful connection between these readers and the couple, it is disingenuous to claim they felt “pain” as seeing the wedding announcement. Rather, the proper word in this case is “hatred.” They did not like the idea of a gay couple’s celebration of their commitment and religious identity being equated to their own, and reacted with rage.
And now the Jewish Standard has decided that the hated-fueled rage of some “traditional/Orthodox” readers is more important that the REAL “pain and consternation” felt by gay and lesbian Jews, theri families, and friends at the Jewish Standard’s decision that their life-cycle events are not valuable or meaningful enough to report in the community newspaper.
This decision makes sense, in crass and venal sense: the “traditional/Orthodox” community is large and spends a lot of money that the Jewish Standard’s circulation and advertisers care about a great deal. It’s just sad that the rage of bigots and filthy lucre count for more than the lives and loves of other human beings.
This apology is disgusting and abhorrent. In light of the recently publicized suicides of gay youth, how dare a Jewish newspaper apologize for publishing a same-sex marriage announcement? Whoever decided that was ok can add that to their list of things to do teshuvah for next year. This kind of absurd public apology is shameful, embarrassing, and dangerous. You are basically telling every young gay person who might happen upon this apology that, oops, we shouldn’t have shown support for gay people, because it offends some ignorant, insensitive members of our community. I’m shocked and horrified by this. And P.S.—there are segments of the Orthodox community that are coming around on this issue, so let’s not assume all Orthodox people think it’s ok to implicitly gay-bash. It’s also very un-Jewish.
Hmm… you can publish treyf restaurant ads but not an announcement of two people joining their lives together? Sounds fishy to me.
From your own “About Us” page:
“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. “
...except for the lives of homosexuals.
Your actions sicken me. Take your mission seriously or take your lofty statements of principles down, you filthy hypocrites.
Shame on your excuse for a newspaper. How can you bring a community together by refusing to print marriage announcements from people within the community? You can’t be a community newspaper if you refuse to carry notices from your own community. You caused pain and consternation for the Orthodox Jews? What about the pain you’re causing gay Jews and their friends and families? You want to be divisive? Congratulations, by caving into religious extremism you’ve managed to highlight divisions within the community and widen them. Did you notice that your two grooms are Orthodox Jews and were both leaders of Jewish student organizations? What about their Orthodox families? Do they not get considered into your worries about consternation and pain?
און פאַר די גאָר פרומע װאָס האָבן געסטראַשעט די צײטונג: שװײג אײערע פּיסקעלעך. אַרבעט אױף אײערע אײגענע פּראָבלעמען פאַר דעם װאָס איר מאַכט מער צרות פאַר דער רעשט פון אונדז. אױב איר װילט אַװעקטרײבן אַלע האָמאָסעקסואַליסטן פון אידישקײט, הײב אָן מיט אײערע אײגענע געמײנדע װײל איר װײסט גאַנץ גוט װיפל געפינען זיך צװישן עץ
!
What kind of newspaper are you? Have you no backbone? You are a newspaper, first and foremost. It is because of ridiculous “sensitivity” reactions like this that force young, bright children to jump off of bridges. What’s next, no more NY Times because they publish gay wedding announcements? No inter-racial wedding announcements because someone might get upset? Since when does one group of readers determine what all readers get to read? If it upsets the reader, DON’T READ IT.
Thank you for making me feel like a valid and respected member of the Jewish community. Not.
Are you serious? I guess you are. How disappointing. And stupid.
What a craven and ridiculous decision! How on earth can someone else’s simcha cause anyone pain and consternation? If it does, that person needs therapy, not to throw his or her weight around and bully a newspaper into bigotry.
As a reader of the Jewish Standard and as someone who is engaged to be married, I am outraged by your discriminatory and biased decision not to publish life-cycle announcements from same sex couples. SHAME ON YOU!
To all regular readers out there and anyone else reading this, you must let the newspaper hear your outrage too.
Absolutely despicable decision, and the most craven form of journalism. I assume the Standard will also stop running articles about women who work outside the home, wear immodest clothing, or sing in the presence of men, since those people might behave in way that offends the delicate sensitivities of a few readers? Photos of men and women who are not related will now be segregated by gender, lest readers get the idea that sometimes men and women socialize without being married or related? I assume *all* mention of Conservative and Reform (and don’t even mention secular) Jews will also simply be stricken, since what they call Judaism might not measure up to the standards of the strictest traditionalists, and should therefore simply be ignored, as if it didn’t exist? And anything at all—anything—that the most observant Jew doesn’t like, you will simply excise from your pages and pretend that by doing so, the real world has ceased to operate? When you cave in to the most restrictive among us, you alienate everyone else—and pushing certain people back into invisibility in order to avoid being “divisive” is, in itself, a horribly divisive stand. Shame.
I just wanted to thank you for letting me know I am not welcome in your community.
I’m not quite sure what constitutes “pain & consternation” caused by announcement of a couple’s pledge of love and devotion, but it doesn’t compare one bit to the pain you have caused all LGBT Jewish women and men by caving to in fear and bigotry.
If you are striving so hard to draw the community together, you’ve done a great disservice to the former members you’ve thrown under the bus.
Shame on you.
I suspect that some gay people, and even some of their friends and family members, feel pain from so many instititutions of our society not recognizing their lifelong committment in marriage.
The logic of this statement is baffling. The Jewish Standard is “striving to bring the community together” by marginalizing LGBT Jews. What about the “pain and consternation"of that group of Jews who are being told by this statement that their celebrations are not worth celebrating.
I feel the decision to run the original announcement was correct. I am saddened that a fraction of our Jewish Community may have felt hurt by your decision to announce a simcha. Our halakhic tradition demands that we treat all members of our community with love amd respect. The Jewish People have been victim to fear and bigotry throughout our long, rich cultural history, it is shocking and sickening to me that a Jewish newspaper serving members of our Jewish Community would condone this bigoted behavior and allow fears based on prejudice determine their policies. I am shocked and disappointed. We can do better.
As a supporter and active Jewish citizen in Bergen County, I would like to state that while I understand the opinion of the traditional/Orthodox community and the pressures they often place on media outlets and the private sector, it is disappointing to find the Jewish Standard to have chosen to only speak to that community and change their policies of inclusion of all sectors of the Jewish community in northern NJ due to pressures. Perhaps it is that the Jewish Standard does not believe the secular Jewish community will make as much of a scene about this issue, but in light of the media coverage in NJ due to Tyler Clementi’s passing and bias crime that took place at Rutgers University, home to many secular Jews from northern NJ, I would have expected a VERY different decision by such a well-renowned publication. I am asking you to please change your decision, and understand that you are a publication for the ENTIRE Jewish community, no matter what pressures are put on you for social reasons. Thank you for understanding and I hope to hear that you reverse your decision and return to being the Jewish publication you have been for many years.
It’s a simcha! Simchas don’t cause pain and consternation, at least not in my book. A gigantic mazal tov and kol hakavod to the happy, beautiful, and inspirational couple. We love you!
I write today to sincerely protest your exclusion of same-sex wedding announcements from your newspaper.
I sympathize with your conflicted decision making process, given the diversity of your readership, whose varying values are not only important but also are part and parcel of the very make-up of the communities you service. Indeed, I applaud your sensitivity to the feelings of your readers.
However, your aim to be sensitive to one faction of the Jewish community has left another to suffer. While I understand the publishing of a gay wedding may be upsetting to some, these readers are not being asked to attend or to approve. To protest the publishing of such an announcement has more to do with accepting such people as existing in the world than accepting them as part of one’s community.
I find it tragically ironic that the stated motives for your decision hinge on community members’ pain, but you have effected quite a hurtful act in its own right, causing real pain to those who know now for sure that they will not be accepted (not approved of, merely acknowledged) in the Jewish community - at least the one you represent. You are hardly “drawing the community together” in this move; you are merely choosing which group is worth listening to, which group is expendable.
I find your decision objectionable and offensive. In two weeks, I will rejoice at the holy khasunah of my friends, whose wedding announcement was elided. Our community will be strong and loving, as we welcome them with open arms.
To whom this may concern,
I find this news disturbing, especially in light of the number of suicides by homosexuals that occurred in the USA over the course of the past month.
Why should the public announcement of a homosexual couple be more abhorrent to an Orthodox Jew than the announcement of a Simchat Torah celebration for young Jews where Jews must pay for entry or where musical instruments are used, or the announcement of services at a synagogue where non-Kosher food may be served at communal celebrations, or the announcement of the installation of a new female clergy person? And furthermore, why should an Orthodox Jew’s discomfort with announcing a life cycle event of two people unknown to him or her allow the publication, read also by non-Orthodox Jews, convince a community not to publish announcements that will upset several Orthodox Jews who clearly are at odds with recent attempts from the Orthodox Jewish community to reach out to and to welcome gay Jews?
Regardless of Jewish law’s ramifications surrounding a homosexual union, I am willing to suggest that it just might be a Chillul Hashem—a desecration of the God name—when a free publication that writes for and about Jewish causes sinks to the level of engaging in the shaming of an entire percentile of the Jewish population by refusing to acknowledge their lives, their lifestyles, their life cycles, and their existence.
We should not read about a gay union just as much as we should not read about Jews who belong to egalitarian synagogues, Jews who do not keep kosher, and Jews who do not engage in the core Mitzvah of “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
Sincerely,
Jonah Rank
Rabbinical Student, Jewish Theological Seminary 2015
Under New Jersey law, same-sex couples can enter a civil union, which grants them all the legal rights and obligations of marriage at the state level. It is shameful that this newspaper would seek to accomodate a vocal minority of readers whose values run counter to the majority of Jewish denominations (and the majority of Jews in the US) as well as to discriminate against same-sex couples whose unions are legally sanctioned in the State of New Jersey.
Your newspaper has set a new low for American Jewish journalism.
While I am happy to learn that you want to be sensitive to those in your community who are bigoted and exclusionist, I wonder whether you even care about the rest of us, the majority, who welcome the announcement of love and commitment between two members of the Jewish community?
You are making news in ways that you might never have anticipated.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/nj-jewish-paper-bows-to-bigots/
Every day people reach out to me to tell me about the pain and consternation homophobia causes lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Maybe you should apologize for writing this offensive apology.
Backpedalling on this issue will only exacerbate the problem. Bowing to the pressure of religious fundamentalists alienates those in the Jewish community who view marriage rights as a civil rights issue. This editorial is an insult and pretending that it will somehow reduce divisiveness is a foolish delusion.
By apologizing to the homophobic and ignorant you are spreading hate. What if the New York Times apologized to the KKK and all of it’s readers for publishing a jewish marriage taking place and promised never to do it again so as not to ‘cause pain and consternation’ to the good white Christian men of the KKK.
You’ve just told every single person who loves another person of the same sex that they are wrong and that the world doesn’t want to know that they exist. But why stop there? We can’t have this group of Rabbis feel bad. Maybe we should round up all the gay’s and put them somewhere that they can’t be seen at all. Maybe a camp somewhere.
Doesn’t this decision betray your mission statement?:
“TO PROVIDE a forum for members of the community.
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.
The Jewish Standard is independent; it is committed to Jewish continuity and to Israel and America’s well-being.”
I echo Matthew Meltzer’s succinctly expressed opinion regarding the Standard’s unfortunate reversal of a brave and well-reasoned decision to print the Smolen/Rosen wedding announcement. I grew up in Bergen County, and my own adolescence and coming-out process as a gay man would have been unimaginably easier had I seen such examples of same-sex love and commitment in the local Jewish newspaper. I urge the Standard not to give in to “the pain and consternation” of one segment of the community at the risk of causing even more pain to another segment. In any case, calling these two groups “separate” is foolish, for by now we know very well that there are gay and lesbian people within the Orthodox community as well—some of whom may have been delighted to see this wedding announcement printed in the Standard, despite the protestations of the Orthodox leadership.
Great, so a bunch of religious fundamentalists pressured a newspaper into discriminating against gays. Do you guys have an Afghani edition by the way?
I am appalled that The Jewish Standard would cave in the face of prejudiced bullying. I understand that same-sex partnership is seen as a “hot-button issue” especially within religious communities, but to say that a simple and unadorned announcement of the joyous union of two children of Israel causes “pain” to those who would rather have these two young men live out their lives alone or in unhappy and unhealthy heterosexual marriages is completely backwards. What is painful is that such couples who want nothing more than to live happy and observant Jewish lives with a loving and supportive partner continue to have to hide from and within our communities for fear of setting off a “firestorm” merely by existing as they are.
We as a people have to stop giving in to the right wing Orthodox just because they threaten and throw tantrums when the rest of us do not conform to their vision of how Judaism should look, and dare to have our own ideas about what we value as Jews and as ethical human beings in a confusing world. The more we give in, the more this minority gains the control to dictate where and how the rest of us worship. who is and is not allowed to live and celebrate lifecycle events in Israel, right down to who is and is not Jewish. I personally am not willing to quietly sit by while that happens.
I read items in newspapers all the time that cause me “pain and consternation.” My solution? Turn the page!
Jewish same-sex weddings aren’t going to stop just because you now refuse to announce them. Your decision is short-sighted, discriminatory, and ultimately, cowardly. Score one for intolerance, zero for journalistic independence. For shame!
It’s such a shame that this publication has gone from joining members of their community in celebrating their joyous occasions to pandering to a crowd of isolated, insular, intolerant, and selfish fanatics. This move has shown that certain sectors of the community are more valued than others. I personally find this decision sad, frustrating, and painful.
Since The Standard has decided that it is only for “certain” Jews, I hope that everyone else chooses to no longer patronize your newspaper.
Does the Jewish Standard publish announcements of interfaith marriages or is the Jewish paper of Northern New Jersey unwelcoming to those couples as well? More importantly, how does Rebecca have time to even write this when she should be home having kids and baking challah?
I’m saddened to read such news that you will no longer run ‘such’ announcements. I am proud and happy to know many a gay couple and my life will continue to be so much more enlightening and gratifying with them in my life and with your publication out of it.
Your editorial is shameful. These narrowminded rabbis are causing serious “pain and consternation” to gay and lesbian Jews and to lots of other Jews who care deeply about their gay friends and family members. Why do the loudest bigots get to dictate the standards of a newspaper?
Maybe you shouldn’t post ANY life-cycle events. That wouldn’t work, would it? This pressured discrimination comes from a minority that has made it their personal mission to disconnect more than 80% of all Jews who do not subscribe to their way. I will no longer read your post.
Striving to bring a community together by treating a segment of the community as lepers—exiling them to the outskirts of the city, and declaring them as unclean. Good luck.
It wasn’t your publication of the announcement that is driving the community apart, it is those who are complaining that they are being forced to look upon the unclean, and your bowing to their wishes to treat the unclean as if they don’t exist, that is driving the community apart.
I hope that the editorial staff decides to reverse their decision. As an observant Jew, I am always overjoyed to hear of the simcha of any two people uniting in love.
Please reverse your decision and continue to run same-sex announcements!
If you don’t like same-sex weddings, I have three words for you: DON’T HAVE ONE!
The decision of The Jewish Standard to refrain from publishing announcements of sam-sex marriages in the Jewish community is shameful. It perpetuates the stigmatization of members of our community, with all the known results of emotional and real physical harm this causes.
It does so in order to placate another segment of the community that claims that it feels consternation to read about such events. But the assymetry of the claims of these two groups is blatant. No reputable newspaper tries to limit its coverage to stories that make everyone happy. Indeed, we all know that many things happen in the Jewish community that cause consternation to other groups. Such discomfort is the necessary corollary of living in a pluralistic world. Frankly, reading that some Orthodox rabbis objected to the marriage announcement causes great consternation to me - a rabbi who is overjoyed that the marriage took place. Would you consider not reporting their objection so as not to cause me, and the many, many other committed Jews who feel as I do, terrible consternation?
On the other hand, the erasure from its pages of the life-cycle events of one group of Jews supports the perpetuation of real-life suffering and misery and - read the recent newspapers - even death.
Until such time that the The Jewish Standard decides to become the official newspaper of only a certain segment of the Jewish community it is obligated to report the events in the entire community fairly and inclusively.
As Jews, we have always been commited to advocating for human rights, and giving respect to all. The Standard should represent all aspects of the Jewish world, and give the same opportunities for all Jewish couples who want to announce the joy of their upcoming marraiges. I am ashamed that the Standard (which is supposed to represent all viewpoints), would take this backwards step. Human beings are being hurt here. I respect Orthodox Jews for living in the manner that is appropriate for them, and that respect should be given to all in the Jewish community.
As a friend to the couple, a queer ally, and a committed Jew, I am insulted and disgusted by this decision. The decision of these two young men to commit to each other and to build a Jewish family is one worth celebrating, and I am disturbed that you would bow to the opinions of small minded bigots who cannot see its value. If we are truly to grow and thrive in this country, it behooves us to move with the winds of history, which are blowing increasingly towards tolerance.
So you are simply valueing the “deep sensitivities” of some Jews over others. Not a very ethical decision, is it?
Have you not read or heard about all the teen suicides these past few weeks? They were all the result of bullying, and being made to feel that they were lesser humans because of their sexual orientation. A person’s sexual orientation is a gift from G-d, not some perverse medical condition. The true mitzvah would be to continue to announce these wonderful life cycle events until they ceased to seem “wrong” to some members of the community. They are the ones that need education and to find their truly loving hearts.
What a shande. By allowing this segment of your readership the power to prevent you from reporting that these events occur, you’ve left behind your journalistic role and moved into acting as an apparatus of social ostracism. It’s so incredibly disingenuous to say that you’re making this decision to allow for greater unity when in fact your decision means the wholesale exclusion of LGBT Jews. This action can only be construed as “drawing the community together” if you believe that LGBT Jews don’t belong in the first place; that “some [Jews] are more equal than others.” Shame on you. Such behavior does not deserve the name of “The Jewish Standard.”
It caused people pain? I feel pain every time I see an ad for a non-kosher restaurant in your publication because it means that Jews are going to eat non-kosher. I also feel pain everytime you advertise an event on shabbat because it means that Jews might not observe shabbat. Will you take note of my pain and refrain from advertising anything that violates halachic Judaism?
I feel so horrible for the “pain and consternation” experienced by members of the Haredi community. How about the “pain and consternation” experienced by traditional LGBT Jews who feel invisible and alienated on a daily basis!?
I think you need to change the name of your newspaper to “The Jewish Double Standard”...
This is in direct contradiction to your mission statement, in which you say that you are not affiliated with any movement or point of view and that you are dedicated to giving expression to all phases of Jewish life. You have betrayed your own standards, let alone the trust of those non-traditional Jews who were also your readers, and you should be ashamed.
What is divisive? Refusing to acknowledge the joyous life-cycle events of non-traditional Jews, simply because traditional Jews don’t want to see or hear anything about them.
What are you communicating about the sensitivities and suffering of Jews? The sensitivities and suffering of traditional Jews, though such announcements affect them only indirectly, are more important than the sensitivities and suffering of traditionally marginalized Jews who may be driven away from the Jewish community entirely from such treatment.
Why is the pain of traditional Jews who are simply seeing an engagement announcement of which they disapprove valued above the pain of those who want to share their joy with those in their community who may wish to celebrate with them? If your management and/or editorial staff are not biased, then, at the very least, you’ve kowtowed to those who are.
You are not “drawing the community together.”
You’re silencing those who are different and making them feel less welcome.
Dear Jewish Standard,
Conservative and Reform Jews recognize that gay individuals are also “created in the image of God”. They also have feelings and needs like the rest of us. They and their families actually experience pain inflicted upon them by such opinions and editorial policies as yours when you deny their humanity in the same way that the Germans did when they put them in concentration camps. In the State of Israel gay parades are permitted.but you would deny them even a joyful announcement in your paper. Please reconsider.
Rabbi Bernard Spielman.
To the editors of the Jewish Standard:
As a long time subscriber of the Jewish Standard, I was deeply saddened to read your apology to printing an announcement of engagement in a recent issue.
How disappointing it is for me to know that I can not announce my own family’s simchas without knowing that I may face censorship by your newspaper—this causes me “great pain and consternation.”
Knowing that we are all created “B’Tzelem Elohim,” in G-d’s image, and that in every community we pray for and strive for Shalom… peace and completeness, I cannot believe you have allowed a group of our own people to marginalize another group of our own people.
I hope you will reconsider your decision and perhaps consult with other members of our community who would share a clearer perspective on our wonderful, multi-faceted religion.
And yet you choose to cut off those Jews who celebrate same-sex relationships. I don’t just mean Jews IN same-sex relationships, but all those who celebrate them.
If we look at CA, 83% of Jews voted against Prop 8, meaning 83% of Jews were committed
if not to acceptance of marriage for gay and lesbian people, at least to tolerance.
I believe through this decision you are hurting more people by insulting the Judaism of these 83%. The 27% may be more vocal, but the “Standard” of the Jewish community is clearly with the 83%.
Jewish law itself teaches us to go with the majority in almost all cases.
By going with the minority, and refusing to publish these celebrations, I believe you are
doing something very UN-Jewish both for traditional and ethical reasons.
I am deeply upset at your decision to not include simachs like the one you so admirably posted last week. I am confused as to how this publication thought that it would bring together the Jewish community rather than push it away when they were so deeply influenced by one sect of Judaism, that being Orthodox. What the Jewish standard failed to consider, is the accepting and supportive views of homosexuality that many Reformed, Reconstructionist and Conservative Jews support. This decision only promotes one theory of thought while neglecting THREE others. In an age where there is an epidemic of gay teens committing suicide (including ones in places where the Jewish Standard is delivered, like Ridgewood NJ), this publication has a social responsibility to help people who feel ostracized and unaccepted rather than push them away. However, the views that created your decision are not ones that I am proud to promote as a Jew. This decision will not ‘bring the community together’ as it is intended. I am hurt and ashamed by your actions and I feel that you as a publication should reconsider your decision and speak with all of the Reformed, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and GLBT Jews who may think differently on this matter.
It is such an incredible insult to think a newspaper would censor itself based on pressure from certain homophobic members of the community. I hope this reaction to such censorship, and to the recent suicides of gay children due to isolation, harrassment, abuse, and social shunning will make you reconsider your misguided, shortsighted decision.
How sad that you caved to those who are intolerant. You are now causing “pain and consternation” to the rest of us in the Jewish community who do not want to believe that our religion is hateful and bigoted. Shame on you.
Dear Editor,
Your decision to discontinue the publishing of same-sex engagements/marriage is both cowardly and unimpressive. The so called ‘pain’ of those opposed is a mask to encourage and promote sinas chinam. The pain of all Jewish LGBT people and friends/family is greater than you give credit for. To be shunned and hidden, to feel invisible and inferior is a far greater pain than the ‘pain’ of bigots.
Maybe you’re afraid that you will lose majority of your readers, but what ever happened to integrity? What ever happened to doing the right thing despite what people will think? To being stronger than the weak and narrow-minded. To promote tolerance and love. To be a leader instead of being a victim to your ‘numbers’.
It’s such a shame that people who are in the position to take a stand and have their voices heard choose to silence themselves and others hiding behind excuses that ooze fear and weakness.
I hope you will soon see what a big mistake and misjudgment this is on your part.
“The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.”
This is not the reason why announcements of same-sex marriages are not to be published. The decision not to publish these announcements in the future drives away a segment of the community, excluding a group in favor of pacifying the complaints of another.
“we did not expect the volume of comments we have received, many of them against our decision to run the announcement, but many supportive as well.”
There are members of the community who support the publication of this announcement as well as those who do not. It is possible that those who are in support of same-sex marriage are more willing to remain quiet and not complain than those who do not. That, however, is no reason to assume that by refusing to publish future announcements you will not be dividing the community.
The announcement made some people happy while others were upset. To not publish these announcements in the future says that those who were supportive of this couple’s intent to marry are, at best, less important members of the community you wish to draw together more tightly. The decision to not print future announcements divides the community just as clearly as did publishing it in the first place. If your intent was to draw the community together, you failed, and must for the sake of the community try again.
I never knew that the NJ Jewish Standard existed until you distinguished yourself by banning gay and lesbian civil union announcements.
Good for you. Now you are famous around the world, thanks to the net, as the number one Jewish organ for hate and intolerance in New Jersey.
Clever marketing ploy. Now all the bigots will subscribe.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/nj-jewish-paper-bows-to-bigots/
One step forward, two steps back. Shame on you.
Dear Friends,
If you did not expect the volume of comments you received on this issue, you are woefully out of tough with the true tenor of the times. I am sorry to hear that you have elected not to run such announcements in the future. It is an indicator that you have no intention of drawing the community together, but fully intend to pander to voices of bigotry and prejudice. I am saddened by your decision.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Meltzer’s comment above. My Jewish upbringing taught me to be inclusive and not just tolerant but celebratory of differences. This statement is outrageous and shameful as a reflection on the Jewish community.
Your decision is reprehensible. It is said that when there are two Jews there are three opiniions. I didn’t know that the opinion of one group would discount the feelings and opinions of another within the Jewish community. You state “The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart.” Your decision not to run announcements of this sort will be divisive to the community as a whole while solidifying one right wing view.
As a former Teaneck resident I was delighted to see how progressive and open-minded the Standard had suddenly become by announcing a gay marriage. I am deeply disappointed by their retraction. It greatly devalues my estimation of the paper. I certainly would never consider placing an announcement in it from now on!
I do not think I can adequately express how disgusted I am by this decision. As one of the most oppressed groups in history—a group targeted over and over by violence, excluded, scape goated, hated—one would think the Jewish people would have developed an acute empathy for those who continue to suffer at the hand of small mindedness. And I think, for the most part, one would be correct. But not in this case. This is a cowardly pathetic, backwards, and hypocritical step for a group of Jews to take. The world has continually sought to marginalize the Jews for no reason other than fear. So now a group of Jews has the gall to do the same?
You claim you are striving to draw the community together. So you make the deliberate choice to exclude active members of your community because of their sexual orientation, their genetic makeup. What an excellent exhibit of togetherness. An excellent example for the rest of this hateful, prejudiced world.
It happened just a few days ago, in this newspaper’s home state: A boy jumped off a bridge into the Hudson because society made it clear to him that being gay is too far out of the norm for him to be treated with respect.
Can such an event not teach us that the least we can do is welcome gay individuals as part of our community?
Are we as Jews going to set such an example to the world - cutting people out of our circle?
Is that our new standard?
You have chosen to make this a divisive issue and you have chosen your side. Gay teens around the country are being bullied to death and you have chosen to embrace homophobia. All gays will always be welcome in my home. The Jewish Standard…not so much.
Your reaction to the Orthodox cries of hurt feelings seems typical to me. We all back down to them as if they hear God better than the rest of us poor Jews. I don’t buy it and gay Jews certainly don’t either. You shouldn’t report news of the community as if the gays don’t exist. We can’t all live in a bubble world like the Orthodox. It’s a big world out there and gays are not shadow people and they can hear God as well as the Orthodox. So you should hear the gays and let them speak in your paper too. Unless, that is, there is more you don’t say—perhaps the people complaining are threatening nonsupport of your paper? If so then say so and be honest. Money is always at the root of most injustice it seems.
The headlines are full of the numerous lgbtq youth who have committed suicide in the past few weeks, and we wonder why. Could it be because the public institutions of our society, faith and community - like The Standard - choose to send a message over and over that it is acceptable to affirm discrimination? As a member of the Jewish community, I don’t know how you can call yourself Jews - and embrace the tenants of tikkun olum- and yet make a decision like this. You are worried about “the pain” you have caused a group of orthodox rabbis by sharing a happy announcement of a marriage. The Standard should consider the pain of people who are living as second class citizens in this country…something that Jews have unfortunately experienced and should be fighting against. It is time for us all to acknowledge the responsibility we share in these tragic and preventable deaths.
For the Jewish Standard to support the shaming of gay Jews is a shonda. How cowardly to knuckle under to pressure from one segment of the Jewish community. What is that segment afraid of—that their children will see what is already commonplace in this country; that is, that people who identify as the same gender can marry and/or have a formalized partnership? Wouldn’t it be better for those who object to these announcements to let their children ask them questions than to have same-sex partnership be something they can’t talk to their parents about? From whom, then, will they learn about it? In addition, with the current crop of gay teen suicides in the news, don’t you understand that shame can be fatal? Some percentage of Jewish people are gay. That’s the reality. It’s time to accept it, and our gay brothers and sisters, and move on. Remember ahavat Israel, people?
I would ask that the editors reconsider their decision. Would you stop posting announcements about events on Friday nights and Saturdays just because they did not comply with Orthodox practices on Shabbat? The truth is that the stance against gay marriage is a fundamentalist opinion. Your decision to publicly refuse to publish gay marriage announcements is far more alienating to mainstream and secular Jews. I live in Los Angeles. I learned of this horrible decision on facebook. It was forwarded to me by another Jew who lives in California. Your decision will continue to have negative reverberations even if you decide to make a “separate but equal” accommodation.
As a Jewish woman, Jewish educator and a mom of kids straight and gay, I am disappointed that this publication would purport to represent Jewish values while disenfranchising a significant portion of Klal Yisrael. Shame on you.
Can it be that the editor is apologizing for letting people know that two members of the community love each other and want to share the simcha of their plan to wed? The editorial apology completely ignores the pain caused by deliberately throwing LGBT people under the bus in some quest for community harmony.
If the new litmus test is whether traditional or Orthodox leaders experience “pain and consternation” from an announcement, then the Standard needs to make some other changes, too. First, amend the statement of purpose, which currently says, “The Jewish Standard is not affiliated with any . . . movement, or point of view, but is dedicated to giving expression to all phases of Jewish life.” Simply add: “except gay people’s Jewish lives, which do not count.” Second, ask for Orthodox permission before publishing other parts of the Standard, too. Does the ordination of women rabbis alienate traditional leaders? Then just stop telling your readers that it happens!
Or try another approach: Publish the happy announcements (and the objections from people who are afraid of, or pained by, others’ joy). Or at least apologize to the people whose lives are actually affected by your decision, rather than to bystanders who were not invited to the wedding.
I am very sorry to hear that you have reversed your original decision. In doing so, you have chosen to hurt those who are often marginalized and most need our support. Jews of all peoples should understand that, regardless of their personal views.
The way to move towards inclusion and pluralism is not to sweep bigotry and hate under the table. This is a despicable decision on the part of the editorial staff. Cloaking hate in the speech of pluralism is absolutely unacceptable and a complete farse. Let’s call a spade a spade. This is straight up bigotry. If these Orthodox Rabbis actually want pluralism, they’ll put on their big boy pants and turn the other cheek. Or, if they want Jewish continuity, as they say they do, they’ll wake up and smell the roses and include gay Jews in their communities. Welcome to the 21st century!
I find your paper’s stance to be unprincipled. If the wedding that you are asked to announce is a legal union in your state, then it is discriminatory to refuse to publish a notice—even if the basis of the discrimination is religious faith. In this case, there are rabbis on both sides. Your decision to refrain from publicizing gay Jewish unions is taking sides in a Jewish cultural conflict. I urge you to reconsider it.
Dear Ms. Boroson,
I’m sure you’ve received a flood of emails following your editorial earlier today, and I do hope that you’ll take the time to read mine as well. As a young, recently out Jew, I consider myself lucky to have been raised in a familial and Jewish community where a “gentleman’s agreement” to keep my sexuality private seemed destined for the history books, not the newspapers. Imagine my disappointment to find that the Jewish Standard was kow-towing to a minority of the Jewish community behind the polite semantics of wishing not to appear divisive.
To me (and many others, I’m sure), the Jewish community has always been one that works to include and care for all of its members. As one kehillah, we applaud our philanthropists and shun only our most sinister evil-doers; after all, “a Jew is a Jew.” Yet you have determined, through rescinding the marriage advertisement, which Jewish voices fit within the cannon of Judaism, and which ones shall be cast out. How can you, as the authority for a newspaper that claims to unite diverse branches of Judaism, make such a judgment call?
I have never been faced with a choice between my religion and my sexuality. Perhaps I have lived a charmed life where Jewish avenues in which I participate either avoid making judgment calls, or make ones that specifically make me feel more welcome. But as a Jew who aspires to marry Jewish, raise Jewish children in a Jewish home and synagogue, and works full time for the Jewish movement, you have offered me little hope. I sincerely wish that this is not indicative of all multi-denominational organizations out there, and that, as you hope, this will be an issue that can unite Jews one day soon, and not divide them.
Sincerely yours,
Zachary Barr
This decision is beyond baffling and is causing “pain and consternation” among concerned Jews around the world!
The Jewish Standard is not a partisan political or ideological organ for one segment of the Jewish community. In a time of high rates of intermarriage, and enduring homophobia, two Jews of the same sex want to commit their lives to each other, in a way sanctioned by all but the Orthodox segments of the Jewish community? How can the Jewish newspaper of record *not* publish such an announcement?
It is ironic that you use the word “pain” twice in your short retraction, given how deeply painful it is to GLBT Jews, their friends and families and people who care about them, that their lives are not visible in our communities and publications. It is just that invisibility and lack of validation—a sense that there is no future for them—that leads young gays and lesbians to attempt or commit suicide. Make no mistake about it—THIS is causing pain.
How this decision will avoid confronting a divisive issue is beyond me. Both the content and process of the decision are deeply embarrassing. Jewish same-sex weddings and unions are happening. To exclude those announcements is to say that the paper is controlled by Orthodox concerns. Once the standard is “must not cause pain and consternation to the Orthodox rabbinate”, you will quickly find yourself with a very different paper.
I urge you to reconsider your position.
Dear Editorial Staff.
As you have heard in other comments: Reportage is Reportage. To announce a same sex union/marriage is not an opinion. One can not disclaim a fact. If it is raining, and the rain offends someone, would you put a disclaimer on your weather report? I suggest in the future that you print what is reportable, and let the “offended parties” look to themselves.
The decision not to run such announcements in the future will serve to divide the community just as much as the decision to continue to run them would have. Speaking as an Orthodox Jew myself, I am very perturbed to hear about your caving to bigotry in the name of my sub-culture.
Your editorial staff should be making decisions that they themselves believe are ethical, rather than relying on the ethics of their readership.
Your disregard of the pain and consternation of the LGBTQ community and their supporters is a SIN. Your thoughtlessness in the matter is making a larger breach in the community— GLBTQ Jews benefit so much more from seeing themselves accepted than the ultraOrthodox “suffer” from seeing a marriage announcement. Your decision to no longer announce gay weddings, which mirrors actions of so many bigots out there, demeans members of the community who need our support more than ever. Your mission statement says that you are “dedicated to giving expression to all phases of Jewish life”— clearly only when it doesn’t insult the extremists! You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The upcoming marriage of Justin Rosin and Avi Smolen is unquestionably “news of Jewish interest” that deserves to be printed in your pages. The decision to suppress marriage announcements of same-sex Jewish couples is a morally inadequate one. If the Jewish Standard is, as it claims to be, a publication that represents the Jewish voice of Northern New Jersey, its decision to silence its members does injury to that voice and to the publication’s reputation.
The suppression of this news distorts the reality of the contemporary Jewish world. Non-recognition of homosexual members of our congregations, counselors at our Jewish summer camps, and pupils at our Jewish day schools does not protect Jewish values; it impoverishes Jewish discourse. If Judaism is to survive in America as a serious system of ethical thought, it must engage critically with the cultural and technological changes which define our reality.
The Jewish Standard should print announcements like this one for a compelling moral reason. By silencing the announcement of the marriages of gay Jews, we prevent gay Jews from appearing in public. By silencing the voices of gay Jewish adults, we put young Jews who are developing their sexual identities at risk by depriving them of role models. Demonstrating their life-long commitment to Jewish life, service, and learning, Avi and Justin are certainly such role models.
The Jewish Standard’s editorial explaining its decision demonstrated that the opinions of some Orthodox members of the community about homosexuality compelled its decision to exclude homosexual members of the community from the public forum. By submitting to the “sensitivities” of the Orthodox establishment, the Jewish Standard deprives developing Jewish young people from envisioning happy Jewish lives in a way consistent with their sexual orientations. I fervently hope that the Jewish Standard will reverse its decision to perpetuates the exclusion of some members of the Jewish community. This act of exclusion has truly caused pain.
Mazal tov to Justin and Avi.
Before this stunning display of bigotry I had never heard of the NJ Jewish Standard even though I grew up in NJ.
Now I hope that I never hear of it again.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/nj-jewish-paper-bows-to-bigots/
Shame on you. Seeing things you disagree with in the paper is not “pain and suffering.” By that logic, I’m sure whites in Selma felt a good deal of “pain and suffering” when they were forced to watch black people eat at their lunch counters, too.
Dear Jewish Daily Standard,
You’re stupid.
With the love that dare not speak its name (and is agenda-ed to destroy the world!),
Adam
I am so disappointed to here you have decided to continue to make gay people invisible again. How appalling and said for you and your readers. One day you will look back on this and be shamed by being on the wrong side of this issue!
I am a member of the orthodox community, but I must say that those Rabbis DO NOT represent me. This is a horrible decision by the editors of this newspaper, and I hope they decide to reverse it. Our Jewish community will always have its disagreements and differences, but we cannot allow the preferences of some to override those of others. There is enough room in our Jewish tent for a whole world of diversity, and it’s horribly upsetting to see a newspaper that claims to represent the community decide that it is their policy to do the opposite.
I’m not sure if I can expect there to be any change, but I can say that until further notice, I have no plans to read this newspaper ever again, and would gladly support a competitor that would take its place.
I support your decision to abstain from publishing such announcements in the future.
Publishing announcements of this nature are akin to publishing statements about Jews proudly eating pork or watching Saturday morning cartoons. While we know that Jews break Jewish law, it is not the business of a Jewish newspaper to proclaim it from the rooftops.
I applaud your newspaper not bending to pressure from the left wing of Judaism that is more sensitive to being politically correct than to being halachic Jews.
That being said, you need to be consistent. You can’t publish events held on Shabbos or Yom Tov and run ads from non-Kosher restaurants and expect that people won’t throw that in your face at the selective adherence to Jewish law.
You are a Northern New Jersey paper. A Rutgers student jumped off the George Washington Bridge in pain last week and you are apologizing to the Orthodox for any pain you might have caused by allowing a gay couple to announce its simcha? Are you mad????? What pain? Did it hurt their poor Orthodox eyeballs to see gay people failing to have anonymous gay sex in the back of a gay movie theater like good little sinners? What was it about this couple’s happiness that was so painful to the Orthodox? What next? Will it hurt the poor Orthodox people to see a wedding between a Cohen and a divorcee? A Lubavitch and a Satmar? A wedding officiated by a Reform rabbi? One with inadequately kosher food? One involving a non-Orthodox convert? You so worried about causing the Orthodox pain, don’t announce simchas at all.
I just can’t get over it. The very week a gay student in your own backyard kills himself in pain you apologize to the Orthodox for allowing some gay people a moment’s respite from pain. Sick, twisted and shameful. I urge you to retract this ugly decision immediately.
The Jewish people have had a long, proud legacy of both existing on the margins of society and of defending those people who occupy the margins along with us.
Refusing to publish queer marriage announcements in this publication is a travesty, a betrayal of our commitment to social justice and tikkun olam, and ultimately, an act of cowardice.
It is times like these that I remember it is more important for certain members of my community to exclude people like me in order to close ranks; I’m sorry that’s the case, because every time you make this decision you will deprive the Jewish community of some of its most observant, committed, lively, engaged, and passionate members.
Your wrong-headed apology reminded me of our Seder plate, which for many years has included an orange next to the shank bone and bitter herbs. Someone reads a short paragraph about prejudice against gay people, then urges everyone to eat a slice of orange and “spit out the seeds of homophobia.”
What’s significant is that this custom wasn’t started by a gay person, but by an older straight couple. It has now been passed on to their many children and grandchildren. Perhaps you and your rabbis with “deep sensitivities” should consider an addition to your Passover rituals next year.
So you will not again announce the impending nuptials of two Jews of the same sex because I, another Jew, might not approve? Will you also not announce the election of Jews to public office unless I supported them? Do you ignore the conviction of that goniff Bernie Madoff because it’s a shanda and the goyim might possibly read of it in your paper? The logic here is nebulous. The spinelessness is apparent.
This statement is an embarrassment to Jews everywhere. The complete lack of sensitivity demonstrated less than a week after a gay teen committed suicide in NJ over bullying and harassment is utterly repulsive.
To the editor:
You’ve done a great job publicizing your periodical. You see, before today, I had never read the New Jersey Jewish Standard. Your new editorial policy has been “going viral” today among some of the Jewish students here on campus, and it would have gotten quite a laugh for backwardness if it weren’t about such a serious issue.
I’m a Jewish—and gay—college student, and I’m writing to express my disappointment in your new editorial policy of excluding same-sex wedding announcements.
Simply “not [running] such announcements in the future” does not make the issue less divisive or make the problem go away. It only further alienates gay community members—especially youth. An epidemic of gay youth suicides such as the one our country is experiencing this fall (including the latest in New Jersey) is a tragedy, but not an accident. By including same-sex couples in your announcements, you would show gay youth that they can be Jewish; you would not be complicit in their oppression.
If Jews in New Jersey are getting married, then you should print their announcements. It’s that simple. Unless, of course, you trying to say that same-sex couples aren’t sufficiently Jewish.
I know there are people out there who hold such a view, and I respect that they may still be good people and good Jews. However, that doesn’t mean I would want to read their newsletter. Rest assured that this is both the first and the last time I read your publication—until the policy is reversed.
I trust that your board can find a way to tactfully include same-sex couples equally in the Jewish community.
With great respect but also with great disappointment,
Ben
In your mission statement, you proclaim that your aim is to “provide the Jewish communities of Bergen, Hudson, Passaic, and Rockland counties with an indispensable newspaper that will present local, national, and world news of Jewish interest.” Yet today’s statement cheapens these goals. In announcing your decision to refrain from publicizing same-sex wedding announcements, your paper marginalizes members of YOUR community who already experience “pain and consternation.” I hope that your paper reverses its policy and decides to celebrate inclusiveness over bigotry. Until then, you are accomplishing exactly what you claim to fear—you are driving your many segments apart!
I am a young Jewish professional, and this is my first encounter with your publication. I am deeply offended by this apologetic editorial. The traditional/Orthodox community needs to learn that their sensibilities are no more godly than anyone else. Your words have unleashed a rotten stench.
I just want to make it known that I, and many others, find this decision discriminatory and offensive.
As a nonprofit professional who has worked for a Jewish student organization, a Jewish GLBT organization, an orthodox synagogue and now a reform synagogue, I am taken back by how the Jewish communities around the world are handling this situation. Rather than addressing the need to be welcoming to the GLBT community, the Jewish communities around the United States have decided to try and hide the fact that there are Jews who are also Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgender.
In Colorado, the discussion is always about Jews intermarrying (marrying out of Judaism) and the fear of losing these Jews from the community. Yet we turn a blind eye to those Jews who want to marry another Jew of the same sex. When will Judaism embrace everyone who is Jewish and welcome them into our communities? For thousands of years, we were hated, persecuted and murdered for being Jewish but now we are doing the same thing to those that want to be active in the Jewish community but also are GLBT.
Excerpt from http://npgold.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/jewish-gay-fine-by-me/.
I’m dismayed that a segment of the Jewish community felt “pain and consternation” simply by reading about two Jewish men entering a committed relationship that is legal in the state where they reside. Clearly, we have a lot of educatng to do.
How can a newspaper cave so easily and then advertize that it will no longer meet the needs of the entire Jewish community.? The Jewish Standard squandered an opportunity to teach Jewish values of tolerance and respect
You’ve got to be kidding! Anyone within the community should be allowed to announce their simchah! By refusing to publish some in a community newspaper, you are making a clear statement that they are not welcome within the community. This is just after a group of Orthodox rabbis put out a statement saying that all should be welcome, regardless of sexual orientation. If someone finds it offensive, then they don’t have to attend the simchah, which they probably were not even invited to, anyway. And I’m sure it causes more pain to those being excluded than to those who don’t want to read about it. The latter can also just skip the announcement.
As a rabbinical student dedicating his life to building pluralistic community I want to express my deep sadness over the editorial that I just read. If you understand “giving expression to all phases of Jewish life.” as “doing whatever the frummist common dominator demands” than you are simply mistaken (or perhaps simply scared into compromising your mission). Either way, I hope that you reconsider your decision.
With prayers of reconciliation from the holy land,
Getzel Davis
Hebrew College Rabbinical Student 2013
I am amazed by the quality and tone of the comments posted here. To see such respectful, eloquent expressions of strongly held opinions about such a controversial issue, when so much of the internet is little more than a sewer, is truly astounding. The editorial staff’s decision announced above is tragic; the reaction to it, on the other hand, is inspiring.
Either the editorial staff of the Standard is being mind-numbingly stupid and short-sighted, or they believe they would lose more subscribers by accepting same-sex union announcements then they will be rejecting them. The overwhelming number and eloquence of the responses to their decision should address the former; as for the latter, it seems to me that every subscriber who is offended by this decision needs to call the paper NOW and cancel their subscription.
Truth be told, I believe that the firestorm you started and which you tried to control is now only going to continue. I think this was a very poor decision, bowing to pressure from hate rather than basking in the glow of love.
I’m disappointed in your decision, but I think the reality is that the Jewish Standard has always been a very mediocre publication, and you are only proving that outright. Best wishes in your downfall.
So you’ve responded to the sensitivities of the Orthodox community. Now you’re hearing from those of us who count gays as part of all of Judaism. Show some strength of character and some menshlechkeit by going back to your original position, accepting and acknowledging gay Jewish people and their life events. Do it because it’s right. You knew it was right; now go back and say so.
I am disgusted. This is neither what the free press stands for, nor what the Jewish traditions of knowledge and acceptance stand for. I can only state in the strongest terms possible that I do not wish to patronize a newspaper willing to compromise its integrity in this fashion.
Well, it looks like this editorial has also caused some pain and consternation. In your ongoing effort to avoid causing any consternation whatsoever, might I suggest that you close up shop? There is no way that a paper reporting newsworthy events can avoid generating anxiety or dismay. Does this mean you will not longer report on Israel news because it generates anxiety as well?
I actually want to applaud your original instincts to run the announcement, and want to suggest that you follow your instincts not the dictates of the committee on vice and virtue.
The editors choice of words is intellectually dishonest. They claim that they were unaware that this issue would be sensitive to orthodox rabbis. Probably, what actually happened, was that these men of god threatened to pressure the newspaper’sadvertisers or make the editors’ kids pay full tuition in Hebrew day school.
Would you also not report on a Bat Mitzva if it offended the sensibilities of the intolerant? How about a marriage between a Cohen and a divorcee (also not permitted)? Many Orthodox rabbis do not accept reform and conservative conversions…so will you stop announcing their marriages and events? Homosexuality is not a sin, only a particular sex act is, your announcement does not imply any sin taking place whatsoever! How odd that only concerning the issue of Homosexuals do you decide that announcing their happiness causes just too much “Pain and Consternation” to the outwardly intolerant.
What an incredibly insulting choice of words by editor Rebecca Kaplan Boroson! This month the news is flooded with gay teens taking their own life because of the pain of being made to feel different and less than. But you only see the “Pain and consternation” of those intolerant few who are disturbed by the happiness of others, when it doesnt even effect them!. I’m sure it pained them so much when they saw the engagement announcements. I hope there arent any suicide attempts, or depression in the Orthodox world because of your paper’s announcement. Rebecca Kaplan Boroson turns compassion on its head, and insults decency in the process. This editorial is just plain wrong, as evidenced by just about every comment posted here. My family and I will never read your paper again,
AND WE ARE ORTHODOX!
How dare you blame the Orthodox Jews, many who show great compassion and understanding to gays (see statement of principals signed by 200 orthodox rabbis), for your narrow minded, hurtful and immoral decision. You do and can not speak for Orthodoxy. Thank Hashem for that.
Shame on you Rebecca Kaplan Boroson, and shame on this paper,
-Mordechai Levovitz
The Jewish “Standard” is not exclusive and divisive.
The Jewish “Standard” is one of courage, solidarity, and protection.
The Jewish “Standard” is not to simply ignore the existence of those whose realities may inconvenience us theologically.
The Jewish “Standard” is to rejoice in the celebrations of our brethren.
The Jewish “Standard” is one of vigorous debate but unflagging respect.
The Jewish “Standard” is one that puts values before profits.
The Jewish “Standard” is to love all Jews - and all the rest is commentary.
“The Jewish Standard,” on the other hand, seems to value none of these. The greatest mockery is that in your publication’s name, you deign to speak for - and to - all Jews.
Yours is not my Jewish Standard.
I have not lived in the states for almost three years, but I am painfully aware of the recent wave of American teenagers who have taken their lives due to the teasing and taunting they endured from their peers and community members for being gay.
Tyler Clement, age 19, a student from Rutgers who jumped off a bridge after his roommate “outed” him online, is the most recent. But Seth Walsh, age 13, Billy Lucas, age 15, and Asher Brown, age 13, all compose a list of tortured youth who took their lives. In case you were not aware, all of these suicides happened last month.
I don’t know what religion these children were. I don’t think that matters. What I do know is that they took their lives because individuals told them that who they were was wrong, and what they felt was invalid.
The Jewish Standard can now count itself among these voices that tell gay and lesbians that their love have no place in our society, or in the Jewish community.
Shame on the Jewish Standard.
Shame on them for succumbing to the rabbis who have for too long held authority over who classifies as a Jew, and who now determine what classifies as love.
“The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart.” Unfortunately, that is exactly what they are doing.
I pray that the happy couple may be zoche to build a bayit ne’eman b’ysrael. I pray that they may one day see a time when love like their’s is celebrating for the simcha that it is. And I pray that the Jewish Standard will see the error of their ways.
Your role, as a newspaper, is to report what is happening within the Jewish world. Part of what’s happening is same-sex Jewish couples deciding to commit to one another for the rest of their lives.
By intentionally ignoring these events, because of the pressure of one group (be they bigoted, over-sensitive, narrow-minded, or juist ‘traditional’), you are moving away from your role as a newspaper and into the sphere of propaganda.
Is that what you want The Standard to become? What a shame… I will be seeking my Jewish news elsewhere.
Add me to the chorus: shame on you for your cowardice and acquiescence to the bullying tactics of the know-nothing, fearful, bigots. It is attitudes like this that are driving me from israel and the jewish people.
I guess all those centuries of prejudice we’ve endured haven’t really left a dent in your consciousness… Don’t ask, don’t tell seems to have found a new haven…
I am deeply disturbed that you would stop running wedding announcements for same-sex couples. Are they not part of the Jewish community? Don’t they have the right to announce their happiness as any other Jew. Aren’t their “sensitivities” important as well? By discriminating against these couples you have deeply offended me and by the looks of the comments, many others, also. I don’t understand how you can do this to members of our own Jewish community. Please reconsider this decision. It is hurtful to know that a paper that is said to represent the entire Jewish population of northern NJ would be so dismissive of a segment of our community.
Please reread your mission statement, count all the ways that this decision violates your own purported principles, and then reconsider—no, reverse—this decision.
I am surprised and very disappointed that you have chosen to exclude gay-marriage announcements, thereby reinforcing an out-of-date prejudice and compromising your own objectivity in the process.
There are only losers in your decision to capitulate on this issue
Wow, the Jewish Standard has no balls, is a joke of a newspaper, and could not be any more irrelevant. Good job giving in to bigots, homophobes, and just fear in general!
your statement is absurd and cruel, indicating you only care about the “pain and suffering” of a certain subset, this paper is no standard for anything Jewish
Simply appalling this decision to exclude any members of the community based on the bigoted beliefs of a very small minority. I converted to Judaism many years ago and one of the main reasons was the total acceptance and inclusion of those that other religions were so quick to single out for condemnation and exclusion. Given the editors “reasons”, who will be next to be cast aside because a few bigots might be offended? History is littered with those who have been excluded by the bigots of their day and it makes me very sad to see this abhorrent behavior displayed by this paper. This is not the Jewish faith I was drawn to so long ago.
Mazal Tov to Justin and Avi
Not that it was asked, but thanks for the answering the question, “Who owns Judaism?” obviously an Orthodox minority do—at least at the Jewish Standard. Now that we know who’s “standard” your monicker refers to, the rest of us will go elsewhere. Because, your standard is definitely not mine nor the rest of the Jewish community’s. Your cowardly decision has made a mockery of your name, journalism, pluralism and diversity that is the true state of the contemporary Jewish community that you’re supposedly reflecting back to your readers. If I wanted fiction, I’d read a novel. Better hope that Orthodox minority can produce a lot of adverstising dollars and new readers!
I am so glad that you apologized for your heinous act of announcing this marriage. I would also like to request that you never post announcements where a Cohen is marrying a divorcee; where one of the individuals is not Jewish or isn’t converted via an Orthodox Rabbi; where the couple has not been certified by an Orthodox Rabbi as keeping kosher, shomer Shabbos, and extraordinarily frum; and where a committee of those who brought this to your attention has not voted to approve the announcement. Actually, why don’t you just stop printing announcements all together, as it would be easier for you and also spare me the pain of witnessing the naches of those who have found happiness with each other.
And, in case you didn’t understand my “letter of support” was really reductio ad absurdum…SHAME ON YOU FOR MAKING THIS APOLOGY!!! You are siding with the same bigots who would lump the Jewish diaspora in with the GLBT community as fodder for annihilation.
It would seem to me that serving the needs of klal yisrael - the entire Jewish community is your mission - and that as journalists, once in a while you will “take some heat” for sticking to your mission. I urge you to reconsider your policy, and to publish announcements of all ceremonies that are supported by a significant authentic segment of the Jewish community. So a gay/lesbian marriage which is supported by the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal streams of Judaism should certainly have a place in your pages. Similarly - there are parts of the Jewish community that do not endorse the observance of kashrut - so even though my personal commitment is to the Conservative movement I am not troubled by displays for trief restaurants.
I am profoundly troubled by your submission to the strongly and sincerely felt views of a particular steam of Judaism.
In the end .... “have you no shame??”
Now that the Haredi rabbis have seen that you are willing to kowtow to them, there will be no end to their “pain”-driven demands. They will demand you remove all mention of Reform synagogues, non-Shomer Shabbat events, immodest photography and ads, and anything relating to the Rubashkins and eimilar kashrut scandals. Meanwhile, the mainstream Jewish community that you profess to serve will become more and more alienated. Good luck with that.
Since gay marriages are illegal in New Jersey, running these “marriage” and “engagement” announcements would be furthering such illegal actions.
I can truly understand why, in this time of declining readership, the Standard would be mindful of the feelings of a core constituency and aware that said constituency is unlikely to educated—having found most of what it needs in books written 4,000 years ago. However, there is another constituency that will conclude that you are on the wrong side of history. I do not know how to reconcile these two things—and I gather you don’t either. Too bad, because I and a lot of observant heterosexual but progressive Jews were looking to you for leadership, and you have let us down.
What a difference a week makes. Last week, when I read the announcement in The Jewish Standard of the upcoming marriage of two young men who are obviously committed Jews, I admired your decision to publish significant life cycle events such as these. For those Jewish families, including mine, who have gay, lesbian or transgender children, it was especially meaningful. These young adults, many of whom are knowledgeable and dedicated Jews who are determined to lead full Jewish lives, have been written out of the Jewish community for way too long.
This week, I opened The Jewish Standard to read that such announcements will no longer be included, due to the pain caused to one segment of the community. Rather than grapple with the question of how you can be a newspaper that serves the entire North Jersey Jewish community, you beat a hasty retreat in the hope that the controversy will quietly disappear. It won’t.
We are not asking for your newspaper’s endorsement of gay marriage, only that you accord our family, and others like ours, the right to rejoice in our children’s simchas and share the news with our community.
Hi, I’m Jonathan and I’d like to announce our INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE in your—what do you mean, you don’t print that kind of ad? That’s outrageous! Where do we go to complain? What do you mean, we can go in the back entrance? I don’t see any back entrance. Why are you all laughing? Why are you chewing tobacco? Jewish people don’t CHEW tobacco. And they aren’t named Slim. Oh my God, really? You traveled here in a time machine from Mobile Alabama in 1932 and tied up the real owners? Good, at least that explains it. I feel much better now.
I do not know if I can add anything unique or different from the scores of posters that have rightfully spoken against the Jewish Standard’s retreat from tolerance and respect. So just add my voice to the chorus. Shame on you.
what a shanda.
I read every post and do not see a single one appaluding you for your apology to those who were offended by your listing a simcha of two Jews intending to marry. It seems that a lot of people are feeling great “pain and consternation” over your setting journalistic standards aside in order to appease homophobic readers. Given the ovewhelming pain and consternation felt by so many who read your apology, are you intending to apologize? Intending to set a policy to publish the simchas of any couple who wishes to announce their upcoming ceremony?
Oh, and while we’re at it, what is your policy for announcing a bar or mitzvah of a child whose parents are GLBTQ? How about your policy for children parents who are divorced, intermarried, or any other “alternative” lifestyles?
To the GLBTQ community, take note: There are way more allies out there than ever before. We’re here with you. Celebrate away!
“As a friend to the couple, a queer ally, and a committed Jew, I am insulted and disgusted by this decision. The decision of these two young men to commit to each other and to build a Jewish family is one worth celebrating”...How do you propose they will build a Jewish Family, I didn’t know men give birth.
’
Shame on you indeed. I teach my daughter and students to be inclusive and not just tolerant but celebratory of differences. Weekly you dedicate a full page to proudly lauds Celebrity Jews in media, sports, finance, of all races and socio-economic status - even if only one parent or grandparent is Jewish, is slapping your readers in the face with a feeble, tone-deaf double standard.
I’d ask you to reverse your editorial policies but they only seem to serve you when you have a page to fill. It’s nice to know you are spineless and taking on the big issues of the day with a huge, ignorant slap in the face to your readership and their family members. I’ll be certain to ignore all your publications until you take a good hard look at all your editorial standards.
You should be ashamed to call yourself a journalist and as a journalist I would rather lose my job and funding than ever let a group of bigots tell me what I can write or print. One day people will look at the treatment of LGBT people the same way they look at segregation, internment camps and other forms of “legal” discrimination. You all had a real opportunity to set roots down on the right side of this argument. Too bad you’ve missed your chance. And too bad Yom Kippur just passed because this decision is the kind of thing you should all be repenting for.
This is a sad decision. In the midst of a string of gay suicides, the Jewish Standard has not decided to stand up and stick by their decision. Rather they have decided that Pluralism means obeying the highest standard of frum.
I mean really, “might have caused pain or consternation.” I am sure it caused consternation, which is a good thing, but pain, please. That is insulting to the queer among us who actually endure the emotional and physical pain of hiding a part of themselves, not only from the world, but even those who love them.
If the Jewish Standard were for the ethical treatment of all human beings, and for the safe development of all children, it would not have reached the conclusion that it did. This is a sad day.
I heartily agree with the comments above. I am deeply hurt and disappointed by your decision to not run same-sex marriage announcements in the future. I hope that you will soon remember the words of your mission statement and choose to be inclusive.
This is the first set of comments I remember seeing anywhere where there is so much unanimity among responders, and so little support for the post that occasioned the comments.
I particularly liked the post that renamed you the Double Standard.
I’m sure that you’ve learned, if nothing else, that the time to check whether a news item will offend your self-appointed Censor Council is before you publish. A decision not to publish any such announcements would not have exposed your vulnerability to pressure nearly as much as making a decision and then rescinding it, although it would have been just as wrong as the foolish course you chose.
Shame on you. What a cop out! Just because a small, select group of rabbis feel pain you elect to inflict real pain on a large segement of your readers and in your community. SHAME ON YOU! Absolutely amazing that the editor of a periodical serving a community that has suffered so much discrimiation, abuse, belittlement and hate would even give serious thought to reversing a decision that is so basic and benign. There are plenty of terrible things going on in this world that should bring “pain and consternation” to the rabbis and two people announcing their love and affection towards one another should not be one of those things. Again….SHAME ON YOU!
Wouldn’t it also cause the same orthodox rabbis additional pain and suffering to know that women WORK at this fine publication thus neglecting their domestic duties? I am not Jewish, but I know enough that this kind of double standard is just plain meshuguna!
I am also shocked and saddened by the Standard’s policy reversal. It is hard to imagine two more inspirational and dedicated Jewish leaders than these two young men. However, I believe this should be a wake up call to our community. Yes, the Standard was wrong to bow down to a vociferous minority. However, if we want to keep public debate from being dominated by extremists, whether it is with regard to this issue or politics more generally, then we as the silent majority cannot sit idly by. We need to step forward and speak up. Likewise, perhaps if Tyler Clementi had felt the widespread support and acceptance of the community that is now coming forward to mourn his loss, he would have felt that he had more options.
To whom it may concern,
This decision strikes me as unconscionable for a newspaper that claims to represent the whole Jewish community. The group of orthodox rabbis that addressed you are but a small portion of the Jewish community as a whole.
If you were a gay child who bowed to bullies, it would be tragic—as adults, editors of a newspaper, a group with resources, representatives a broad spectrum of Jewish community, however, it is shameful.
You write that the marraige announcement caused “pain and consternation” to those who complained, it also caused unmitigated joy to others, and the decision to disallow future marraige announcements based on the gender of the parties, will cause ten-times the amount of pain and consternation, not only to GLBT Jews, but to all their friends, allies, and families, who rejoice in their simchas and who are hurt by this continued exclusion.
One final point: You are a newspaper and one that represents the entire Jewish community. As such it is your job to present news that is of interest to the Jewish community. If these rabbis don’t believe in same-sex marraige within Judaism, that is their right, and they need not perform or sanction such marriages. However, if some Orthodox Jews (or more likely their Rabbis—I know plenty of open-minded Orthodox Jews) don’t want to see marraige announcements in print, that is simply too bad for them. The fact is that many Jews are marrying other Jews in same-sex marriages. And many more Jews are celebrating with them. This will continue to be the case whether or not you print it. Why not acknowledge this reality, which is a growing one in the Jewish community? Not to print announcements will not make gay marriage end, it will simply allow a group of Orthodox Rabbis to win in preventing the broader Jewish community from knowing of those marriages, even when many of us would celebrate the news!
Thank you for your time and consideration.
As a group of people who know what it feels like to be discriminated against, how dare you discriminate against others. You know how it feels and you should know better!
If the Orthodox community is offended by gay unions, they have the right to write and editorial, send a letter, even speak with a journalist about it in an interview and express their beliefs. The same should be true of gay people wishing to celebrate their union in front of their Jewish community. The answer to a controversial issue should not be silence. I believe this is a missed opportunity on the part of the paper, and this statement will surely offend many within the gay community as much as it offended unnamed sources among the believers of orthodoxy.
What could it be true of…? It does not seem that even one of the responders before me really considered the Orthodox position in any way. If you believed that you must follow Jewish law in every aspect of your life because that is what God expects, and the Torah prohibits same sex marriage you can’t just say the Torah is wrong. But you have to suspend your own belief for a moment to know what it might be like to think that way. The focus is on following Jewish law.
The issue of same sex unions is a complicated one under these circumstances. So there should be compassion and discussion. But what the commenters are saying is consider the feelings of the gay population and if you don’t make that the priority, you are jerks. Or If you want to be informed about what is going on in the rest of the Jewish community, don’t make waves about what is included in the newspaper even if some of the ads, announcements or articles don’t seem like they should be in a Jewish publication. Unfortunately, there are those that judge on both sides of the aisle. We should at least try to understand each other’s point of view.
Well, I guess it is clear which community you have chosen and which one you are stepping all over. This would be OK you did not pretend to be a Jewish publication that adheres to Jewish principles of tolerance and respect.
Sadly, you have shown how much the influence of the Goyim and their morals have on you and how fare removed from Judaism you are. Shaming and repudiating a group of the community to appease another group is what the Christian fundamentalists do - Jews don’t do that to each other.
You should have the courage of changing your name from The Jewish Standard to something that reflects your lack of understanding of Judaism - what about the Christian Standard?
You guys suck. This is the epitome of why I don’t go to synagogue any more.
As of October 5, 2010, I am no longer Jewish.
This editorial decision is despicable, and lends support to those hateful people for degrade and demean loving, committed gay couples in the name of Orthodoxy. If you are trying to divide our community, you are doing a great job of it now.
Would you also not report on a Bat Mitzva if it offended the sensibilities of the intolerant? How about a marriage between a Cohen and a divorcee (also not permitted)? Many Orthodox rabbis do not accept reform and conservative conversions…so will you stop announcing their marriages and events? How about advertising a restaurant that only has reform or conservative supervision, or even one that is just not Glatt? Would you stop that if it caused Pain and consternation to some Ultra Orthodox?
Homosexuality is not a sin, only particular sex acts are. Your announcement does not imply any sin taking place whatsoever! How odd that only concerning the issue of Homosexuals do you decide that announcing their happiness causes just too much “Pain and Consternation” to the outwardly intolerant.
What an incredibly insulting choice of words by editor Rebecca Kaplan Boroson! This month the news is flooded with gay teens taking their own life because of the pain of being made to feel different and less than. But you only see the “Pain and consternation” of those intolerant few who are disturbed by the happiness of others, when it doesnt even effect them!. I’m sure it pained them so much when they saw the engagement announcements. I hope there arent any suicide attempts, or depression in the Orthodox world because of your paper’s announcement. Rebecca Kaplan Boroson turns compassion on its head, and insults decency in the process. This editorial is just plain wrong, as evidenced by just about every comment posted here. My family and I will never read your paper again,
AND WE ARE ORTHODOX!
How dare you blame the Orthodox Jews, many who show great compassion and understanding to gays (see statement of principals signed by 200 orthodox rabbis), for your narrow minded, hurtful and immoral decision. You do and can not speak for Orthodoxy. Thank Hashem for that.
Shame on you Rebecca Kaplan Boroson, and shame on this paper,
-Mordechai Levovitz
Wow. Disgust at your lack of principles from all the way up in Ontario. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. You’ve sent an awesome message about your paper around the world. Thankfully, your blog commenters seem to have more sense than your editors.
Like apparently absolutely everyone who’s written to you, I’m not only appalled and dismayed by this decision and the incredibly craven wording of your apology, but perplexed. In your editorial discussion, did you consider how you’ve abandoned all the Jewish teenagers who have been hearing that life for gay teens is so hopeless that they’re driven to suicide, or the comfort you’ve given their tormentors? Did you consider the journalistic example you’re setting, that you can be persuaded by lobbyists to exile members of your community, because the simple reminder that gay people exist is too much for their sensibilities to bear? I hate to take this hectoring tone, but the insensitivity masked as sensitivity here is just mind-bogglingly awful.
So what comes next? You exclude all mention of women rabbis? Censor photos of women who fail to cover their hair? Omit reference to Reform or Reconstructionist Jews because being reminded of their existence gives Orthodox rabbis an uncomfortable moment? Your position here is a shande before the goyim, who can now point to this example of the power of a Jewish Taliban even in a respected, diverse Jewish community.
wow, the last time scared people submitted to the will of a closed minded & bigoted minority two million jews were killed. just keep that in mind.
Shame on you. I’ve never heard of your rag before, but now I plan on disparaging it to anyone who will listen.
Good work, cowardly fools.
NEWS FLASH! Homosexual Jews are people, too! They subscribe to newspapers, go grocery shopping, walk their dogs, pay synagogue dues, fall in love, marry, and rear children, just like everybody else. They do these things looking over their shoulders because of a small segment of our society who fear anyone whose ideas or practice may be different from their own. Those who fear change are entitled to their opinions, and even to their narrow-minded bigotry, but they are not entitled to impose their hateful stance on the entire community. The rest of us have a moral obligation not to yield to their falsely self-righteous pronouncements. The “deep sensitivities within the traditional/Orthodox community” apparently do not extend to the “pain and consternation” of some good people (good Jews!), who wish to share news of their simcha with the rest of the community, but who are scorned and bullied by the hateful and vocal few. K’lal Yisrael, indeed.
What a disappointing and spineless position to take. Rather than cause some of your readers some vague, second-hand offense, you have agreed to enact offenses directly against the couples who would like to be acknowledged in your paper.
Do you want to do what is right by your fellow humans, or what is right based on the prejudices of a tiny subset of a vibrant and diverse Jewish cultural spectrum?
Grow up and grow a pair!
I read about your recent editorial decision from the on-line blog of a weekly Seattle newpaper. I was raised Catholic and live in Washington State; I could not be more removed from your general readership. As saddened as I was to read the article discussing your decision, I am doubly pleased to read the above responses to your decision.
I spent the first 16 years of my life living next door to my family’s Orthodox Jewish neighbors. I spent the first 16 years of my life spending the Sabbath with them, sleeping outside in the Fall in Upstate NY, and even saying grace in Hebrew at our dinner table - all that I learned from the time I spent with our closest family friends and neighbors. When I came out as gay, they were some of the first people I told, and remain some of the most supportive.
Although I have moved away, as have my parents and family, we all have remained in touch and close friends. They still walk to temple, and I can’t tell you the last time I went to church. And yet these very religious people who truly show part of what it means to them to be Jewish - to love others and show compassion - are excluded from your ideas of what a Jew should read and think and believe? I may not be Jewish, and I may not be heterosexual, but I don’t dislike you for your decision: we all make mistakes. I trust you will see the error of your ways and correct this injustice and poor choice.
Congratulations, the blood of the pained, confused and terrified young gay suicide victims is now on your hands. Your newspaper is now actively contributing to their “pain and consternation”, but of course, you’re more worried about the (purely hypothetical) pain and consternation of a few ultra-right-wing Rabbis than the actual, tangible pain and consternation of a huge long-suffering community (a community, by the way, who suffered right along with you and beside you not all that long ago…or has your collective memory of the Holocaust been neatly and conveniently erased?).
I feel “pain and consternation” over your decision not to publish these types of announcements. Does that count for anything? Or do closed-minded orthodox rabbis get to set your editorial standards. I doubt there are enough of them to support your paper.
(I’m posting here the letter that I sent to your editor over the weekend.)
Editor:
I was taken aback by your statement in this week’s Jewish Standard. You’ve decided that the “pain” of the “traditional/Orthodox community” trumps that of individual gay & lesbian Jews, their families, and friends; this is a tenuous stand at best.
The “firestorm” was entirely foreseeable, and you should have developed a process for communal reflection and inquiry on this important topic, rather than lurching from pillar to post, as you’ve now done.
I’m disappointed with your process and the outcome so far. There’s still plenty of time to remedy both, and I hope that you will.
I am very upset to see the decision made by The Jewish Standard not to publish wedding announcements from LGBT couples. LGBT Jews are my friends, my neighbors, and an integral part of my community. By your decision you contribute to creating a world that is unsafe and unwelcoming to LGBT individuals, which, as many prior readers have noted, helps create an atmosphere of bullying and intolerance. Please reverse your decision as soon as possible and publicly apologize for your mistake.
Are we to cater to the loud minority in our community whose values preach divisiveness and discrimination by making a discriminatory decision to not include and celebrate two people’s intention to marry? Why must acceptance and inclusiveness, as core values, be sacrificed in this case? This decision is, in the least, shameful and also offensive to many. Can we have a conversation about that? Can we have a letter from the editors to satisfy the many subscribers who are offended by this decision? Can we also send a delegation of concerned readers to sway this hurtful accommodation?
I encourage the editorial staff at the Jewish Standard to reassess their values and ask themselves if this is really an issue of offending others or appeasing a portion of their subscription base.
How awful! One of the most important things to me about Judaism has always been our embrace of and tolerance for the oppressed. For the Standard to choose to exclude rather than include is shameful.
What’s next, refusing to run the obituaries of persons openly known in the community to have been gay?
I am appalled by your explanation of your decision to stop publishing announcements of same-sex unions, and your “apology” to your readers. How can the “pain and consternation” of a reader who disagrees with a news story possibly compare to the pain you are inflicting on the many Jews whose relationships you are invalidating? Jewish values, common decency and journalistic integrity all suggest that you have apologized to entirely the wrong population.
Shame on you. This week, of all weeks, you decide to tear your community even further apart with your cowardly act. This is not what our state and community needs right now. We haven’t even begun to heal from Mr. Clementi’s suicide. One way to make up for this? Start publishing obituaries for gay youths who have killed themselves over being told that they don’t exist in their communities. You knew this announcement was a rouse to begin with since same sex marriage is not legal in NJ. But at one time, briefly, you were on the right side of history when your paper HAD the heart to announce a couples good fortune at finding each other and their intention to scurry accross state lines, like criminals, for recognition as “married”. It must have been a really big funder who decided to pull out. You are a bigots, loud and clear.
I am a Jewish, gay man, legally married in california to my partner of 9 years. When I was a boy, my aunt bell’s only son was going to marry a goy. Aunt Bell was ready to shit shiva for him. My father talked her out of it, pointing out that she was going to lose her son. When Howard died a few years later from cancer, Wanda was iwth him until the end, and Aunt Bell loved her like the dutiful daughter she had been.
Aunt Bell chose love instead of “pain and consternation”. She was rewarded for it, even in the depths of her sorrow.
Let’s fast forward. Would you also refuse to run a wedding announcement between a Jewish woman and a non-religious man, lest it cause pain to someone who does not know the people and is not involved in their lives? Let’s suppose that a secular newspaper refused to run a wedding announcement for a Jewish couple on the off chance that their bigoted readers might object? That would be just fine, right?
It always amazes me when fundamentalist (or otherwise) Jews manage to come up with excuses for bigotry. Gay people and Jews have been subject to Christian persecution for 2000 years. It is hard to tell which group has been hated more. There is a simple solution for those orthodox Jews who are so bothered by the existence of gay people that even the announcement of their existence causes “pain and consternation”.
It’s called live and let live.
If you don’t like gay people—excuse me, if your religious beliefs are offended by gay people—don’t be gay. don’t go to same-sex weddings. If you are so deeply offended that you cannot just skip that particular wedding announcement, then stop taking the Jewish standard.
Your problem is solved. the standard may lose a few readers, but it has contributed to the light in the world, not pervasive bigotry, whether it is admitted for what it is, or dressed up in its Saturdday-go-to-Shabbat’ drag of “sincere religious belief”.
If the orthodox are so offended by the existence of gay people, maybe they should start their very own newspaper, where they can then exclude anyone they want.
Maybe they could call it “The Shtetl”.
The Jewish Channel has a camera crew in Teaneck today reporting on this. If you’re in the area and would like to comment on camera, please call our office: 212-643-9500.
How about you meet with a group of rabbis from the Reform community, and have a subsequent discussion with representatives from that community to make you aware how marginalizing gay Jews causes pain and consternation?
Good. A JEWISH newspaper, by definition, should not be celebrating things that Judaism expressly forbids. The terms Jewish and Gay are mutually exclusive, and must be treated as such.
I’m sure that mixed race marriages caused certain people a lot of “pain” in the 1950’s and 1960’s too. Later, it become clear to a broad portion of the population that these folks were simply hate-filled bigots (many using religious arguments to support their position). It’s a shame that The Jewish Standard now finds more empathy for bigots filled with “pain” than for the actual victims of such hatred. The Jewish Standard has now gone on record and 10, 20 or 30 years from now the then editor of this paper will publish an apology for his/her weak-minded predecessor. It’s a shame that Jews, in particular, have taken a stand here against homosexuals. Maybe the orthodox should redirect some of their substantial study time towards more contemporary history. To see my fellow Jews repressing homosexuals, in particular, other noted victims of Hitler, is painful to me. Shame.
as a non-Jewish, non-gay person, i find it very gratifying to read this outpouring of protest, very largely reasoned, against your editorial. three cheers for your readership!
Many southern US papers refused to carry wedding announcements for interracial couples. Welcome to the 1960s and 1970s. You are a disgrace to the civil rights movement.
Hurry up and issue an apology. Apparently at (right now) 145 comments this is your biggest story. Your biggest story is how bigoted and reactionary you are. This is so hilarious, the internet is laughing at you. You know that as print dies, online presence is paramount, Right?
Well have fun rebranding.
Oh the poor Orthodox community…they’ve had so much pain inflicted on them. Give me a break!
What we have here is a microcosm of what is very possibly tearing Israel apart. That is, the a small minority bullying the larger majority into following their narrow world views and in both cases, the bullies are the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox community.
This decision sickens me. The Jewish Standard should strive for inclusiveness and equal rights for all Jews.
Following up on your decision not to post same-sex Jewish simchas, as they caused “pain and consternation” to some of your readers, I’m wondering when you’ll stop printing: 1. bad news about Israel 2. crisis issues in the Jewish community 3. anything else that may cause any of your readers pain and consternation.
And whiel we are on teh subject, please stop running any ads,a rticles or recipes for tasty and tempting food. I’m trying to lose weight and its painful to read these in teh NEWSpaper.
I find this more than a little ridiculous. Part of being a Jew, to me, is our long tradition of inclusion. Whether it be bringing strangers into our homes for Passover or inviting people of all faiths into our synagogues and religious ceremonies, it seems supremely un-Jewish to exclude any group.
That being said, it’s also sad that the Standard refuses to public same sex marriage notices because they are scared of being divisive. Jews are nothing if not intelligent, thoughtful people who love nothing more than a good debate.
To the Editors:
Since everyone else is complaining about your decision, I would like to say that I applaud your decision not to announce same sex weddings in the future. I am sure that I speak for many Jews who believe that, although a Jew is a Jew and every Jew should be valued and welcomed, there is simply no room in Judaism for same sex marriages.
This is a free country and people can do as they please. If various states want to recognize same sex unions or even marriages, so be it. But same sex marriages simply make no sense in the context of Jewish law according to which marriage, by definition, can only be between a man and a woman.
There is only one thing I can say on this to the paper, you cowards.
Just pathetic.
What a shame that the Standard has made this decision! By bowing to the intolerant few, you are alienating all of those who identify with the LGBT community and its allies. Shocking that Jews, persecuted for their religious beliefs for so long, now can turn around and do exactly the same thing to another “minority” group - FOR SHAME!
As disappointed as I am in the Jewish Standard, I am delighted to see that its readers have so uniformly denounced its bigotry.
I am sensitive to people trying to tell people like my sister they don’t exist. Or that her life is shameful. My sister is a real person and deserves the same respect that I get, just by virtue of happening to be straight whereas she happens to be gay. I’m sorry your religion is apparently so full of hatred.
Those who are hateful and bigoted bring pain and consternation to themselves as well as others. It is sad that this paper cannot see the true cause of pain for “a group of Rabbis” is within themselves.
bye.
I hope the Jewish Standard will respect the liberal Jewish community, and stop printing wedding announcements that give non-Orthodox Jews “pain and consternation.”
In particular:
* Weddings where women are acquired like chattel
* Weddings where women are not allowed to speak
* Weddings that create marriages that can only be ended by the husband
* Weddings where the woman will end up a unmarriagable because she doesn’t want to live with her abusive husband and the abusive husband doesn’t want to give her a divorce
* Weddings where divorce matters will be decided by corrupt, misogynist rabbinic courts
* Weddings where the marriages will end because one of the partners belatedly discovers their gay identity that had been buried under years of yeshiva repression.
Or do non-Orthodox feelings simply not matter to the Jewish Standard?
Not running further announcements? Apologizing?
Change your name to The Jewish Lack of Standards.
Shame on you.
I would like to add my voice to what has become a din of disapproval over the JS’s decision to apologize for publishing a same-sex wedding announcement. It is unfortunate that the editorial staff so dramatically misjudged the response of its audience. (In the comments, I’ve counted only one ANONYMOUS expression of support for your apology. Or, are the members of the orthodox community giving you their support in non-public fora?) But the real tragedy is that you had originally shown leadership, tolerance, ethics, and love and now you have sold out on yourselves in a most hateful way. May you feel shame, and may that shame make clear for you the right thing to do.
Benjamin Harris
It is YOUR problem if a wedding announcement, or any announcement, causes you deep pain. Nobody is forcing you to participate in the reality of other people and their lives, but I do expect any functioning adult to be able to withstand even the thought of someone else’s existence.
This is absurd.
It surprises me to see you caving to religious bigotry when gay teen suicide has dominated New Jersey headlines for the last week.
It’s this very bigotry that causes gay kids to hang themselves or blow their brains out or slice their veins open or throw themselves off bridges.
What part of this don’t you understand?
For those who think that Judaism and gay people are incompatible:
In 1987, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) reaffirmed its commitment to welcoming gay and lesbian Jews into its congregations and encouraging their participation in all aspects of synagogue and communal life. In 1993, Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, President of the UAHC, called upon the Reform Movement to support the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children, to file joint income-tax returns, and to share in health and death benefits provided to heterosexual couples by federal, state, and local governments and by both large and small corporations. Following Rabbi Schindler’s call, the UAHC, in 1993, resolved that full equality under the law for gay men and lesbians requires legal recognition of monogamous domestic gay and lesbian relationships.
In 1990, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) adopted a position paper encouraging rabbis and congregations to treat with respect and to integrate fully all Jews into the life of the community regardless of sexual orientation and acknowledging the need for continuing discussion regarding the religious status of monogamous domestic relationships between gay men or lesbians and the creation of special ceremonies. In April 1996, the CCAR adopted a resolution supporting the right of gay and lesbian couples to share fully and equally in the benefits of civil marriage.
In addition, the Canadian Council for Reform Judaism (CCRJ) has supported the extension of spousal benefits to same-sex partners in relationships which would be deemed “common law” marriages if the partners were heterosexual. The CCRJ also supported the 1996 amendments to the Canada Human Rights Act to add “sexual orientation” as a prohibited ground for discrimination.
In the years since first the UAHC and subsequently the CCAR gave their support for full equality for gay men and lesbians in congregational life, gay men and lesbians have increasingly come forward to participate in the life of Reform Judaism on national, regional, and local levels. No less than heterosexual couples, gay men or lesbians living in monogamous domestic relationships have demonstrated, like their counterparts, love for one another, compassion for the sick, and grief for the dead.
The UAHC has for decades provided moral leadership to the Jewish community and to our nation, recognizing our differences and diversity, but acknowledging that we are but one family, equal before God. In this spirit, the UAHC must now move more forcefully to support the monogamous domestic relationships of gay men and lesbians.
Legal recognition of monogamous domestic gay and lesbian relationships and congregational honoring of these couples will together provide these men and women and their families with dignity and self esteem.
In 1993, the UAHC General Assembly resolution called for recognition for Lesbian and Gay relationships: A) by governmental legislation as to participation in health plans and survivor benefits, as to fitness to raise children, and as to legal acknowledgment of the relationship; and B) by congregations and institutions of the Reform Movement to extend benefits to partners of staff members and employees.
A separate secular movement is proceeding to recognize these monogamous domestic relationships judicially and statutorily and to grant to gay and lesbian couples nondiscriminatory economic, legal, and social rights equal to those under law enjoyed by monogamous heterosexual couples.
THEREFORE, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations resolves to:
Support secular efforts to promote legislation which would provide through civil marriage equal opportunity for gay men and lesbians;
Encourage its constituent congregations to honor monogamous domestic relationships formed by gay men or lesbians; and
Support the efforts of the CCAR in its ongoing work as it studies the appropriateness of religious ceremonies for use in a celebration of commitment recognizing a monogamous domestic relationship between two Jewish gay men or two Jewish lesbians.
As the former President of all of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization for all of NY & NJ from 1992-1993 & an International Chairman & an out & proud gay man this decision appalls me. I am proud of my faith & culture & was a very active Jewish youth helping raise millions to make out synagogues handicap accessible. I participated in fundraising & charity work helping our elderly & bringing awareness on issues such as Alzheimer’s. When I came out when I was 19, fifteen years ago I distanced myself from our religion & only participated in the cultural aspects of our religion (holidays, weddings, the food, song & dance). It was such a great day years ago when J-date decided to have a same sex option & when your publication printed a same sex announcement. G-d knows when I cam out fifteen years ago all my mother cared about was that I date a Jew LOL! But in all seriousness how can you let one sect of our community this group of Orthodox Rabbis dictate what gets printed. There are secular Jews, reform, conservative, recontructionist, hassidic, & orthodox Jews that make up our community. We are made up of white, black & spanish Jews, straight Jews, gay Jews, able Jews, handicapped Jews, young Jews, old Jews, who are they to dictate what we want to read, share, condone, celebrate or not? They are not your only readers & thank G-d for that. This is 2010 people & your publication should reflect that. This is a sad for the Jewish Standard. Shame on you.
As a lesbian myself, I can honestly say that my pain of being excluded from the Jewish and mainstream worlds has caused far more damage than any picture of two happy people can cause their Orthodox viewers. I’m sorry for your Orthodox readers’ pain and consternation, but I doubt seriously that they would consider taking their own lives on account of such pain. I, like so many other gay young people, however, have seriously contemplated taking mine rather than living in a world that erases people like me from public life. I am deeply hurt to know that yet another mouthpiece of the Jewish world will no longer speak for me, represent my values, or even include pictures of families that look like mine.
This is so sad. In light of the last week suicide of a young, bright Rutgers student from Ridgewood, I would think you would be more sensitive. As a Jew I am ashamed of the orthodox community being so intolerant. I am sure many of their own children are gay and live a life of sadness in fear of estrangement from their family. How lovely these two young men have loving families that they feel comfortable announcing their love and committment to the world. Mazel Tov! And, shame on the Rabbi’s who complained! Teach your congegations compassion!
I’m sure you’ll look back on this decision with pride ten years down the line.
“That was the right decision to make.” You’ll say. “Our grandchildren feel no shame over our actions. We have never had cause to regret it.”
This is an outrage and hurtful blow to the community, to progressives, Jews, same sex couples, and allies alike.
I am deeply offended that this publication chose to defer to the divisive opinions of a minority group—let alone APOLOGIZE for causing them pain—thereby retreating from a previously-laudable stance of tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance. This regression is particularly shameful in our current moment of rampant gay bullying and the rise of related suicides, occurring as nearby as Rutgers University, right in the NJ Standard’s own backyard (http://bit.ly/9nqaHO). By cowering to intolerance, this publication has not only acknowledged and condoned, but perpetrated bigotry.
A reversal in this editorial policy is in order and apologies are due, not to those offended by the same sex marriage announcement, but to those of us crushed by this major step backwards.
An intellectually and morally shameful decision.
“Anonymous, because you’ll call me a bigot too” compares being Gay to “eating pork or watching Saturday morning cartoons” Does this person live under a rock? I mean honestly. Being gay is not a choice we are born that way. Go read a book!
I feel that it is important for you and your colleagues at the Jewish Standard to be informed that the seemingly unified voice of this crowd of Orthodox rabbis that expressed “pain and consternation” does NOT by any means represent all Orthodox Jews.
It makes me crazy to think of why there would even be a question, especially in this day and age but I’d like to posit that there should be absolutely nothing wrong with a Jewish publication that claims to be “not affiliated with any program, organization, movement, or point of view” posting a same-sex marriage announcement. If you are indeed dedicated to providing the Jewish community with “local, national, and world news of Jewish interest” this description would validly and legitimately include such wedding announcements if the parties are members of the Jewish community.
It pains me daily to think that the noisy, easily-offended few have come to represent all of Orthodoxy to the rest of the world, Jewish or not. Shame on your for not sticking to your guns. This demonstrates a lower standard of journalism.
I feel such pain and sympathy for the couple who’s wedding announcement was retracted, for their family, and for the LGBT community, of which I consider myself a strong ally. I feel pain and embarrassment for the Jewish community whom you claim to serve and represent. The Jews are meant to be a light unto the nations. At such a particularly difficult time for the LGBT community, we should be paving the way of inclusion, understanding, and collaboration—not cowardice.
Again, I write to you as a member of the Orthodox community who believes that this editorial decision has only calmed the few complaining voices and their own insular, ignorant, and selfish communities. You have, however, inflamed the anger of pretty much the entire rest of the Jewish community. I hope you can right this wrong in a timely enough manner to repair your reputation and the reputation of the Jewish community on the whole—not to mention trying to heal the hurt and damage you’ve done to this particular family.
I have to respond to add my voice to the others above. It is a disgraceful decision and terribly shortsighted. And where to go now? As a single mother by choice, I am sure that my lifestyle would not be well tolerated by the Orthodox people that you describe. I"m glad I did not want to publish my announcement with your paper.
Think about the youth who are killing themselves because of the intolerance of others to homosexuality and sleep well tonight.
As a rabbi serving the Northern New Jersey Jewish community who recently celebrated my own engagement to another woman, my congregants and rabbinic colleagues alike have responded first and foremost with expressions of joy and support. What has often followed these congratulations, however, has been the question: how will my partner and I go about planning our wedding in a state that does not recognize full marriage equality for same-sex couples? Until now, the legal barrier of NJ state civil unions has been the one looming challenge to our simcha. With the Jewish Standard’s decision to retreat from the inclusion of LGBT Jews in your wedding and engagement announcements, you eviscerate progressive Judaism and effectively double the burden of Jewish same-sex couples in NJ who wish to sanctify their relationships within the framework of their own religious tradition.
The place of LGBT Jews within our community must be cherished, protected and celebrated. It should come as no surprise that LGBT Jews have as authentic and meaningful connections to Jewish ritual and tradition as the group of traditional/Orthodox rabbis who spurred this misguided act of discrimination. Therefore, it must be the obligation of those institutions and leaders who serve the Jewish community to uphold and respect the dignity and humanity of all Jews, regardless of their sexual orientation.
I have a great idea for your next editorial! Why don’t you recommend that Jewish kids who are gay and lesbian commit suicide? Yeah—that would be great! Then ... they wouldn’t get a chance to grow up and need wedding announcements! Brilliant! And no one is offended.
No, wait, I have a better idea. Why don’t the rabbis who were offended just act true to form and join the Nazi party? As I recall, they hated gay Jews, too!
Those homophobic rabbis send a clear message that gay people are defective and their relationships are unacceptable. Their message is internalized by their community and its children and implicitly encourages violence and bullying.
By affirming their hate the editors also encourage intolerance. You cause gay adults and their families actual pain and disappointment, and you and the rabbis fill your gay children with suicidal despair. Hasn’t there been too much of that this last month?
Very sad to see prominent members of the Jewish community peddle in the same bigoted nonsense under the guise of tradition as the evangelical Christian. I’m proud of the progressive Jewish tradition and it’s upsetting to see other Jews demanding the privilege of saying what Judaism shall be rather than the community at large. It was nice to see this publication embrace the modern world. It is disheartening to see it side with bigotry and prejudice of the very sort that we as a community should know for what it is.
I’m embarrassed and saddened for the retrograde, bigoted, antediluvian cowards at the Standard.
As Jews it is our obligation not to shrink from controversy. The extreme wings of Judaism will very soon find their beliefs about homosexuality as detested as beliefs about wives belonging to their husbands to be stoned at will. Seeing this decision was a rare moment when I have been ashamed of my fellow Jews.
I commend you for your decision. A Jewish newspaper should not bow to the social whims of the times at the expense of its Jewish ideals. There is no such thing as a same gender marriage in Jewish Law, it is not a Jewish practice. No Jewish newspaper should feel compelled to print such announcements just because it is a social norm in America today.
Having spent the majority of my life working my hardest to hide my sexual orientation from myself and everyone I know, I am now a very lonely young man. Only a handful of my friends and family know I am gay, and the fear I experience daily at the thought of telling others or having them find out is crippling (I’m limiting personal details in case any of them should read this). I currently live in a very traditional neighborhood, and should most of the community members discover my secret, I would not be welcome at homes for Shabbat meals or in the Shuls. As I discover more and more accepting friends, I am able to relax a little in knowing the world is changing and perhaps soon I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Thank you for shattering that a bit.
And yet, thank you, seriously thank you for publishing this apology. The outpouring of support for the GLBT community in the comments by readers is absolutely moving. It is good to see and reaffirm that I am not alone, and if it weren’t for your apology, I might never have seen so many touching comments from people of all sorts saying, in effect, “you have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear; you are welcome in my book.”
I hope to be seeing an apology for the apology, a statement to the Orthodox community recognizing their concerns and explaining that the paper has an obligation to welcome all members of the Jewish world even if it may go against the beliefs of some, and a republication of the original announcement alongside an article (or a few) discussing the subject of sexual and/or gender orientation within Judaism.
You people are just a “ray of sunshine” for everyone, aren’t you?
Good luck with your Einstein decision to align yourselves with the haters.
Let’s start from addressing the “leaders” that admonished the publication by expressing their condemnation of the original notice. By my perception, and likely others, their act itself is at conflict with the Covenant that their orthodoxy is supposedly adherent to. To love all human beings who are of the covenant (Lev. 19:18). Not to wrong any one in speech (Lev. 25:17). Not to cherish hatred in one’s heart (Lev. 19:17). Not to bear a grudge (Lev. 19:18). Not to put any Jew to shame (Lev. 19:17). Not to curse any other Israelite (Lev. 19:14). If they cannot follow the law that they purport to be the ultimate representatives of, then why are you bowing down to their opinion of the law?
How about the instruction “To rejoice on the festivals” (Deut. 16:14)? While this may be seen by the orthodoxy as an instruction related to specific holy days, we have embraced the heart of this message in so much more. For our community, weddings and mitzvahs are festivals. Do you intend to prevent anyone from following this commandment, to admonish them for rejoicing in their festivities?
The plain fact is that G-d loves diversity, which is why no two people have the same presentation or experience in life. By matter of birth there are millions of humans that could not possibly follow all of the laws. There are HUNDREDS of medical conditions that cause sterility in man or woman. By the time that person is born they may already be incapable of following the commandment to multiply. Can someone who never knew their father and mother honor them? The simple of mind cannot learn the Torah and teach it, nor can they read the Shema every morning and night. The Mute or those impaired by age, stroke, altzheimer’s or other condition may not be able to recite grace at every meal.
The fact of the matter is this: the whole of the law cannot be followed by the whole of the people. You cannot question the wisdom of G-d in creating the people that are prevented from following certain laws by the matter of the nature in which he designed them. Science is a beautiful mathematical and logical system desiged by the Creator for us to discover at a pace we could responsibly handle. Science has already come to terms with homosexuality being resultant of medical circumstance during pregnancy, and the neurological pathways inherent to that are unchangeable. So G-d chose another form of diversity that, like other medical states, can’t fulfill the whole of the law. Don’t assume that He designed any imperfect creations that are damned by his design. It’s time to let the pride of man give way to the wisdom of the Creator. Don’t question the correctness of any of his creations.
I am not Jewish, nor do I live in New Jersey. So perhaps it is impertinent for me to thrust myself into this discussion. But I am gay (and human!) so the controversy is of at least indirect interest to me. And I want to say that the comments posted here, in overwhelming opposition to this paper’s embarrassing reversal of an enlightened editorial policy, are the most heartening thing I have read all week. The generosity of human feeling they reflect gives me hope. I am deeply grateful.
Aside from everything else that’s wrong about your decision, which your other comments express so eloquently, I question whether it is even legal. Your new “policy” is discriminatory on its face. I don’t see how you can hide behind a religious exemption, since you do print announcements and advertisements for a host of other non-halachically correct events and businesses. It’s only same-sex relationships that you single out for disparate treatment. Hope you’re prepared for a major lawsuit.
I echo those who posted before me that this decision is disgusting and a betrayal of true Jewish values. The deference shown to the “traditonal/Orthodox” community whom the outpsoken anti-gay rabbis may or may not represent is disgusting. It suggests that only the Orthodox can define Judaism and Jewish life when, in fact, there are an infinite number of ways to be Jewish in the modern period, whether or not an orthodox rabbi sanctions it. Either serve as a voice of the Northern NJ Orthodox rabbinate or represent, as you claim to do, N. Jersey Jews. You can’t do both. And the latter demands recognizing same-sex couples getting married because they too are part of North Jersey’s Jewish population. Claiming the latter and not recognizing same-sex couples is pure bigotry.
Mazel tov to all the Jewish same-sex couples getting married.
You must have heard about the suicides of several teens over the last few weeks. The bullying that gay kids suffer is largely because religious leaders and papers like yours telling them that they are “less than”. Congratulations… now you have blood on your hands.
So much for the pain and consternation you’re causing your LGBT readers and their families, huh?
I’m deeply disappointed to read of the paper’s decision not to run same-sex marriage announcements in the future. On a divisive issue, shouldn’t our impulse be to include, not to exclude? To omit these announcements is to belittle the happiness of members of our community, and more egregiously, to ignore their place in our community.
That whole “perform acts of loving-kindness” lesson in Sunday school didn’t really stick with the editors of the Jewish Standard, did it?
To any other Jews who are offended by the idea of two gay people loving each other: Have a nice cup of STFU and quit sullying my culture, plzthx.
The bigotry of this editorial decision is disgusting.
My favorite thing about Judaism is that so much of it is not just gay-friendly and politically correct, but actually supportive of gays and lesbians as minorities in a hostile world. My hometown’s Conservative shul has a wonderful rabbi who is very involved in gay issues and who welcomes gays and lesbians with open arms.
How sad for a New Jersey Jewish puplication to be so outdone in modernity and tolerance by Conservative Judaism. I will never go to this site again.
For a Jewish paper to segregate a subset of their culture, is thoroughly disappointing. With the recent rash of suicides among gay teens, we must look at what is causing this. Could it be that we are creating a culture of hatred and shame which the bullying children see and copy? Most likely. If adults in the world treat all people with courtesy and respect, this world would be better.
As Jews we’ve seen so much bigotry and hatred, throughout our long history, we cannot put that upon another group, whether they’re another group of Jews, or any other group. These GLBT Jews are a part of our community, and must have the same rights and respect that their heterosexual counterparts receive.
If bigotry is infecting the upper-levels of a portion of Jews in this world, we must work together to get past those, but we cannot as a whole chastise one group because of how they’re born.
I think that it’s shameful that the Jewish Standard should sink to the level of the most bigoted of its readership. You should be setting an example of the jewish community at its best, not its most ignorant.
So when it makes bigots uncomfortable to treat an oppressed minority with respect it’s the BIGOTS’ sensibilities you side with?
What about the feelings of gay people who are being treated as unclean, unworthy, exiles from their own community. To them the Jewish Stand says a big SCREW YOU!
If ANY community should understand how shameful it is to oppress, exile, disrespect and degrade a fellow human it is OUR (Jewish) community.
SHAME on you from Florida Jewish Standard!
How can you claim to be a Jewish Standard when you don’t even understand Shalom?
Thank you for helping lower the suicide rates in this country. This really seems like the “Jewish” thing to do…
It causes me “pain and consternation” that you let a small group of small-minded people set the tone for your paper. This is bigotry.
To whom it may concern,
I am appalled to hear that you have decided to discontinue publishing wedding announcements for same-sex couples. This was an opportunity for the Jewish Standard to discuss an issue that is very relevant in the Jewish world today- Jewish men and women who are religiously observant and identify as homosexuals. Instead of breaking down barriers and starting a forum of discussion for this you have failed miserably and publicly humiliated and shamed people who were finally seeing some progress and inclusion in our community. I urge you to take action and continue to run announcements about all manner of simchas for Jews- no matter their sexual preference.
Amy W.
Teaneck
I was just made aware of this “opinion”. Then I read the Jewish Standard’s “mission statement”. HUH?
I would have thought after all of its years in circulation, the paper would have come up with a more professional way to deal with criticism of content than reversing a policy on the complaints of a group of Rabbis representing one faction of the community.
Mazal tov to the happy couple. I urge the paper to reverse its decision and hope to read many more simcha announcements from all parts of this wonderfully diverse community soon.
Having been raised in Bergen County, the Jewish Standard was my family’s main source of Jewish news and information for decades. It still is, for some of us. My bar mitzvah announcement, parents’ obituaries, and other life-cycle events were printed in your pages. While I may not have always agreed with the opinions expressed or stories presented, it was understood that the Standard was indeed just that - a standard for representing a variety of viewpoints and priorities from all corners of our religion.
However, I am astounded at the craven narrow-mindedness of your decision to stop printing same-sex wedding announcements, not to mention the fact that it took you this long to print just the one. Particularly in light of the tragedies that occurred in the past few weeks which resulted from systemic homophobia, it is unimaginable to me as to why you would choose this moment in time to suddenly become a house organ of the ultra-Orthodox movement. To prevent “further divisiveness?” Try again.
The decision by The Jewish Standard to refrain from printing any future simchas with same-sex couples makes me incredibly sad. I recognize that this is a tough time for print journalism, and perhaps The Jewish Standard feels backed into a corner or like it can’t afford to lose the support of a small but vocal minority. But frankly, if this is what the paper has to do to keep those readers happy…well, the cost is much too high.
The bottom line is that this is a moral issue, and The Jewish Standard has just come down on the wrong side. If this paper does not support the very Jewish values of justice, equality, and tolerance (not to mention rejoicing in the simchas of our fellow Jews!), then to me it no longer reflects my religion and the rest of its reporting is worthless to me.
Your decision has caused more “pain and consternation” than I believe any announcement of a simcha ever could. If this is actually the Jewish standard, it is a very low standard indeed. I hope you will reconsider.
As a former staff writer and managing editor of the Jewish Standard, I am so sad to hear this. I left the Standard to work at The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, which was the first Jewish paper in the country to publish same-sex wedding announcements. During my tenure there, I covered many stories of interest to the LGBT community, including the first transgender person to be accepted to rabbinical school (he has since been ordained, and is now serving in a Reform congregation in Berkeley). Although I am straight, I was proud to spend so much of my time covering LGBT issues, and considered myself an ally. I still do, which is why I am so saddened by this.
Two years ago, I was deputized by Alameda county to perform the marriage of my father’s 75-year-old first cousin and his partner. I was so honored that they asked me, and said that day, that regardless of whether Prop 8 is overturned, in our eyes, they will be legally married.
I don’t expect that these rabbis will get with the program. But sadly I would hope that a paper that covers the entire Jewish community, would.
Thanks for giving me another reason not to consider raising my children in New Jersey. A bigoted Jewish community is not safe for children.
I am sick to my stomach at your regressive decision to ban same-sex engagement announcements—even though same-sex unions are entirely lawful in New Jersey and elsewhere—just because some elements of the Jewish community have chosen to fixate bizarrely on one line in Leviticus to the exclusion of the Torah’s other 612 commandments.
In case anyone is wondering why the younger generation is increasingly abandoning Judaism for secularism, it is because of people like yourselves and decisions like this one. We value the customs of our ancestors, but we value the principles of tolerance, equality, and common human decency even more. If you force us to choose, you will reap what you sow.
This is so sad. Why continue discrimination?
NJJS demands a pound of flesh from the GLBT community…
Surely many of your gay and lesbian Jewish readers feel pain upon reading heterosexual marriage announcements, when they are legally barred from marriage in almost all states. Apparently our pain is less important.
You should reverse this highly offensive and discriminatory decision immediately. “I’m sorry we offended all of you homophobes sensitive to this issue?” Shame on you.
October 4, 2010
Editors and Publisher of the Jewish Standard
NJ/Rockland Jewish Media Group
1086 Teaneck Road
Teaneck, N.J. 07666
Re: “A statement from the Jewish Standard”, 10-1-10
To Whom It May Concern:
Your decision not to run same sex couples’ wedding announcements in future issues has succeeded in doing that which you wanted to avoid: dividing our community. We do not wish to subscribe to a cowardly newspaper that blatantly panders to the Orthodox. Please remove our name from your subscription lists.
Your decision comes the same week that a Rutgers student took his own life after being unwillingly “outed” by his roommate. It is decisions such as yours that isolate, dehumanize, and cause GLBT youth to remain on the outside and feel shame. Why would you choose to perpetuate this hateful culture that is driving young gay people to kill themselves?
Your paper clearly covers reform and conservative congregations (in addition to Orthodox ones), egalitarian minyanim, stories about women Rabbis, Bat Mitzvahs and other practices that Orthodox Rabbis do not necessarily condone. Yet all of a sudden when it’s about a gay couple, you cave in. Why are the former issues okay to cover but not gay marriage announcements?
Your decision is gutless and has caused great pain to many people.
Shame on you.
Sincerely,
Johanna and Michael Rosen
I am so disappointed…embarrassed to be Jewish right now. Gays should be a part if your paper.
You have lost one more reader. This is hurtful, logically unsound, and bigoted.
Last year, in Tel Aviv, a gay youth center and the teens inside were the victims of a terrorist, who thought it would be okay to ruin the lives of teens and their families by walking into a meeting and unloading bullets. Should we give this terrorist a metal? By making to decision to stop including same sex couples in your simcha announcements, you are taking a step towards supporting terrorists such as the (still on the loose) gunman here in Israel, and throughout the world.
Shame on you, and on your publication. I wish a hearty mazal tov to Justin and Avi, a beautiful, happy, and spiritual couple.
I guess if you don’t announce gay weddings there will be no gay weddings.
“Our subsequent discussions with representatives from that community have made us aware that publication of the announcement caused pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused.”
How about the pain and consternation as a result of continued discrimination? How about the pain and consternation as a result of double standards?
Unless you remove ALL marriage announcements, your exclusion of legal marriages by homosexuals creates additional division. Instead of taking sides, which is what your decision reflects, you should report all LEGAL marriages.
Discrimination continues - and few people are willing to stand up to it.
Two days ago, at Congregation Etz Hayim in Arlington, Virginia, I participated in the wedding of my friends Alan and Will by helping to hold up the chuppah. Their 7-year-old son did a reading. The rabbi was a woman (which I’ll bet bothers some as much as the gay part). Alan’s elderly mother, a sharp-witted and delightful woman who came down from New York for the occasion, was in attendance, as were many other family and friends. Exactly nobody was forced to be there who didn’t want to be. I won’t bother asking if you are equally solicitous of the “pain and consternation” of your readers who are not members of the Orthodox community, since your decision to pander to their intolerance has plainly caused pain and consternation for many others. I only hope you are capable of shame, and of using the brain that G-d gave you to think for yourselves (which, among other things, takes control of your mind away from those who would reify a living religion into a relic). If so, perhaps eventually you will realize your mistake, and rectify it. If you grant a veto to those who demand the complete erasure of their gay neighbors, you may find yourselves surrounded by nothing but the intolerant, obscurantist, and fearful—hardly a strong and confident way forward.
How sad. I am a person who has chosen Judaism. One of the things that I love so dearly about my chosen religion is its sense of justice and fairness. That in the face of great violence and terror, Jews stand up not just for themselves, their families, their communities but for everyone.
What rabbi was harmed by this simcha? If the love that these two share is not godly than what is? Should we not celebrate when the Jewish community is strengthened like this?
As many of your other commentators have said, I have been so frightened and saddened to see the stories of gay kids killing themselves. As Jews, we should be working to stop this before another child dies from the intolerance in our society. When you read back what you have written above, do you imagine that it will help one gay child find his/her way to adulthood? Will it help them understand that their community accepts them and loves them just as they were created?
Or, will it be another reminder that there is no place for them in the world? What would have been the greater good here? To not offend the rabbis or to increase the chance that a child grows to an adult?
Don’t just leave comments here, PICK UP THE PHONE, call Rebecca Boroson, (editor of the Jewish Standard) and let her know this decision is repulsive and we will not stand for it!
(201) 837-8818, ext. 105
I commend the publication’s decision to support God’s opinion on the morality of a same-sex physical relationship.
Adding my two cents to those already given…
I think what’s most rankling about this are the reasons given. If your claim was that you wouldn’t print such announcements out of personal religious convictions, that would be disappointing but understandable. (It might also be contradictory to your other practices, detailed by other above, but let that pass.) If your claim was that you had made the cold-blooded business decision that printing such announcements would cost you more readers than not printing them, that too would be disappointing but understandable.
But to not print them because to do so would be divisive and cause pain?
Again as others have pointed out, we are living in a world in which teens commit suicide distressingly often due to their sexuality. Many more make it through alive, but with deep trauma. This problem is particularly acute in the religious world, where part of the problem is that gay, lesbian, and transgender Jews are held not to exist. Those who find themselves in one of those categories tend to think they’re facing the issue alone. In this matter, silence causes pain. Silence causes deaths. Without getting into the halachic questions of how such Jews ought to deal with their sexuality, they do need to know that they’re not alone.
If the motivation here really is to avoid causing pain, then this policy will have the opposite of the intended effect, and this policy is divisive. If you’re going to keep it—and I’d recommend backing down gracefully—you should at least provide a more tenable rationale.
I am a gay Catholic man who was directed to this page from coverage of the Standard’s position in the gay press. I just want to say that I am so heartened and so emotional that the thoughtful, impassioned comments here are uniformly anti-ban and pro-equality. I agree with the letter writer who spoke of the Jews’ proud legacy of defending those who exist alongside you on the margins of society. Having known terrible persecution and injustice, the Jewish people are the most compassionate and loving towards others who also suffer. G-d bless you all; you are remembered in this poor goy’s prayers!
Sins of Omission:
http://www.deciminyan.org/2010/10/sins-of-omission.html
If the sensitivities of some are so great that reading of something that violates their beliefs is so overwhelming, they should stop reading. If their Rabbis teachings can be overcome by reading something their Rabbi abhors, then perhaps the teachings are not so strong. The apology is a shonda.
JStandard should warn their readers that they get paid to serve a narrow audience of Orthodox Jews and are not meant to be inclusive of wider Jewish communities if that is their true mission.
As a Jew who has graduated a yeshiva and surrounded by Judaism in -day-to-day life I’m deeply saddened that a news paper is bullied and intimidated to not run ads of same-sex couples. Today it’s issue of gays that bothers some orthodox people but what else will they want you to sensor in the future? We have the JewishPress to be the parrot of the RCA.
To my fellow Jews who have protested and are outraged by the ad I want to remind you about history of irrational intolerance of others who are not like us. Shall we forget our “fortunate” history in Europe that climaxed in Holocaust because masses hated us no matter how similar many of us looked and lived our lives?
In that ad that created this silly controversy I saw two innocent productive young men who are my fellow Jews but were born a little different. They just want to be happy with their lives just like you want for your sons and daughters. We should not be quick to judge and condemn gay Jews who want to get married. Yes the issue of halacha is important but that does not mean we should silence this issue or deny others to express their thoughts. These men are not forcing you to attend their wedding nor are they forcing your shul to marry them. Live and let Live. If you don’t accept gay marriage in your shul it doesn’t mean you should interfere with their lives and ban their ads. The ad does not interfere with your abilities to observe the Torah.
Many streams in Orthodox Judaism today are increasingly turning towards radicalism and intolerance. Our religious roots do not come from Islamic theology where literal word or Koran dictates life for all under intimidation and coercion.
I applaud the newspaper for initially including the announcement of an exciting Jewish simcha! Mazal tov to the happy couple. I can only hope that my similar, same-sex announcement will be included in my local Jewish paper when the time comes. Isn’t such a newspaper supposed to be an important community space? How is further exclusion beneficial, other than to hurt LGBTQ Jews with continued messages of condemnation which remind them that Jewish community, resources, and support are not accessible to them. How many more suicides will be required to change the minds and hearts of people?! This decision reasserts that Orthodox comfort and views still retain pride of place over those of other groups within the Jewish community. I am saddened and hurt by this decision, but retain hope that this policy will be remedied quickly. Anything less will be discriminatory.
Shame on you for kowtowing to the most intolerant elements of the Jewish community. As a proud queer Jew, I need to tell you that decisions such as this one only encourage LGBT Jews to distance themselves from their cultural roots. Just last week, four gay teens committed suicide in the United States and two young lesbians committed suicide in Orangeville, Ontario. Your bigotry does real harm and is an embarrassment to Jews everywhere.
Thank you all for your impassioned support. Bigotry is bigotry, regardless of the reasons for it.
I am not of your faith, nor of your community, but in reading these responses to your actions—these well written, oft elegantly expressed, though negative responses—I can hope that you will look past this negative, vocal minority and embrace everyone.
By not giving some of those in your community and of your faith a place to celebrate their love, you are effectively shutting them out of their community. I am not very devout in my practice of religion by the standards of some, but I think that this refusal to publish these announcements is unjust.
In my eyes, by stating that “a group of rabbis” (your words) reached out to express disgust, and the following bend of your paper to their will, it would make me think there is a bias here.
I freely admit, there is a lot I don’t particularly care for on this particular rock, but I learn to simply stay away from it. In a newspaper, it’s as easy as moving my eyes on to the next article. I do it every day down here. It’s the equivalent of turning the other cheek in my book.
I think that this issue should be rethought, at least. Be more accepting of your own kind, at least.
Thanks.
- Justin.
Thank you Rebecca and the entire staff for standing up for Torah values and traditional Judaism.
Although it may seem as if the tide is against you, believe me their are a great number of people -many that read your paper - that support your courageous decision.
Given the “tenor of the times,” shouldn’t you laud two Jews who’ve chosen to marry each other? Because THAT can be incredibly rare these days. I don’t have to agree with every couple’s choices (and I’m not actually talking about gay couples) in order to celebrate their love and commitment to each other. The last time I checked, two people who have fallen in love and committed to each other ADD to, rather than detract from, the value of the world.
The fact that a newspaper in New Jersey would take a step backward and publish a retraction so divisive only days after the tragic death of a Rutgers student demonstrates your newspaper’s abject lack of sensitivity. THAT does not represent the Jewish values with which I was raised.
Dear Ms. Boroson and Mr. Janoff,
I was deeply upset to read your statement, published October 4, that, due to the “pain and consternation” caused by the publication of a same-sex couple’s marriage announcement in your paper, you would no longer run such announcements. To me, this decision is woefully misguided at best and, at worst, abets bigotry. In a pluralistic community (which your newspaper purportedly aims to foster - “to draw the community together”), the lives, loved ones and religious practices of all who are members of that community ought to be respected.
Additionally, given the marginalization and homophobia that still persists within some sectors of the Jewish community, I am particularly appalled that this decision not to publish gay and lesbian Jews’ marriage announcements was accompanied by an apology “for any pain we may have caused.” Surely the pain caused to gay and lesbian Jews, their families and friends, and frankly anyone of conscience by this editorial decision is far deeper than the offense caused to Orthodox readers who, by coming across such an announcement, are reminded that others do not choose to live according to the same strictures, interpreting our common religious tradition differently.
On a more personal note, I remind you that homophobic violence - both emotional and physical - still exists within the Jewish community, and in the world at large. My cousin, Nir Katz, was shot to death just over a year ago while volunteering in a gay youth counseling center in the heart of Tel Aviv; a girl was also killed in the attack, and many teenagers were wounded. The parents of some, upon learning of their child’s sexuality in a call from the emergency room, were so blinded by homophobia that they were unable to comfort their children in a time of great pain. Some of the victims were told that, upon release from the hospital, they were no longer welcome at home. The Israeli police have expressed the belief that the shooter, still at large, was a member of the Jewish religious right. No one has every died because they read about a gay marriage in the paper; no Orthodox Jew (nor anyone else) has ever been shot because of his or her failure to recognize the equality of homosexual members of the community.
I write as a young Jew, a reader of Jewish publications (although this has prompted me to give yours a wide berth), and, I hope, an active member of the American Jewish community for the rest of my life. At Yale, where I studied, I belonged to a pluralistic community in which the lives of Orthodox Jews, secular Jews, straight Jews and gay Jews proceeded alongside one another, celebrating each others’ joys and mourning each others’ losses. When reactionary responses to others are set aside, this type of community is possible, and is indeed one we, as Jews, have an obligation to foster.
I hope that you will reverse this decision, and that you take this opportunity to reflect on the opportunity your positions offer for ethical leadership in the Jewish community, lest you squander it.
With concern,
Aaron Littman
That’s interesting. When my step-father passed away a couple of years ago, my mother was told that we could not list his step children and their partners in his obituary (in this publication) because they did not list unofficial next of kin that were not officially married. Ironically my brother did marry his fiancee and my partner and I would be officially married if we could be but we can’t be in this state. I wonder who was offended by people not married but planning on being in the future? I can imagine that there’s nothing worse for the Jewish religion then mentioning people actually being married or actually in a committed relationship. And they wonder why many of us just walked away from organized Jewish activities and teh Jewish community as a whole once we were able. With attitudes like this (and they are more pervasive then many people realize) its really no wonder at all.
Given “the tenor of the times,” wouldn’t you want to LAUD the marriage of two Jews to each other—because THAT seems to be a rarity these days. The last time I checked, two people who have fallen in love and committed to each other ADD to, rather than detract from, the value of the world.
Regardless of anybody’s “pain” or “consternation,” the fact that a NJ newspaper would decide upon such a policy only days after a gay college student (a teen, a child!) took his life in your own backyard because the world is too unspeakably frightened to accept and love all human beings… well, that speaks to your publication’s abject lack of sensitivity in addition to appallingly poor judgment. These are NOT the Jewish values with which I was raised!
What a shame. If publications in europe did the same thing after a couple of bigots complained for a pro-israeli articles… wait, that’s exactly what happened, and why anti-semitism is spreading so fast.
Shame on you.
Gosh, have any of you read the Torah? Being a Christian, I am appalled at the fact that you would even acknowledge the gay community at all. God said that laying with a man as you would a woman is detestable. Christians and Jews worship the same God. Do you remember Sodom and Gomorrah? God wiped them out because their sexual sin was so detestable. The human beings who practice homosexuality are worthy to be loved, but the act or promotion of homosexuality is in direct conflict with God’s word. Why promote it in the first place? That was the original error.
Just a friendly reminder to The Standard and to all of the commenters above… SOME OF YOUR ORTHODOX READERS ARE GAY. No, really! I know at least half a dozen Orthodox individuals in the Teaneck area who are gay, most of whom are likely subscribers to your paper. Not to mention our friends and families who, no matter how frum, care about us and about LGBT civil rights even if they don’t think gay marriages can be *halachically* sanctioned. You are causing us, and our families and friends, tremendous “pain and consternation.” I can’t imagine why an Orthodox person would feel “pain” about this announcement unless they are a closeted gay person realizing they will never be accepted, even by non-denominational largely-secular Jewish institutions such as The Standard, let alone their own community. Anger? Annoyance? Fine. But pain? Please… the real pain here is reserved for those of us who are gay and lesbian RELIGIOUS JEWS who will never have a place in our communities because of who we love.
I’m not a Jew. I’m not gay. I don’t live in NJ. I’m not even American. But your news has spread worldwide to all people - Jews and non-Jews, gays and straights. I am saddened by your editorial decision not to print future marriage notices of same sex unions. I’ve read every response on here and am happy to see that the large majority of posters are loving, compassionate and tolerant. I particularly agree with Geoffrey Cantor’s succinct post that ‘Reportage is Reportage’. It is your purpose as a newspaper to report. It is not your duty to avoid offending your readers; news often offends. Many of the armed forces die every day in Iraq and Afghanistan and this is very painful news, but does that mean it should be withheld from the public? Obviously not; that would be a ludicrous decision.
I think Daniel Nieciecki’s comment about ‘filthy lucre’ is possibly very relevant - does the paper rely on dollar injections from the Orthodox community? If so, charge your readers a subscription and be done with it. Your principles should not be curbed according to your sources of income.
Particularly at this time when young Jewish men are throwing themselves to their deaths through fear of non-acceptance, you should be doing your job, which is to report the news. Only by keeping these issues in the open forum can we hope to tackle bigotry and intolerance, an issue which I thought would bring all Jews together, in light of the shocking history of how your people have been treated.
You are now just as guilty of bigotry as those who dislike to read objective, fact-based news about two human beings legally getting married. Since when does this paper not publish facts simply because some people might not like to hear them? Facts are facts and news is news.
I must say, this decision is rather disturbing, especially in light of last weeks major national headline, Tyler Clementi, a New Jersey resident and college student in your state, committing suicide. Add to that the suicides of 4 other gay youth in the prior 3 weeks, and you can see a trend starting to emerge. LGBT youth are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide. Upon attempt they are actually more likely to succeed. Why is this? Perhaps it is because of instituionalized homophobia, as represented in part by your periodical.
You talk about “pain and consternation” of a portion of the Jewish community? WTF are you talking about? How dare you equate the feelings of bigots upon reading about other people’s love to “pain.” You know what does constitute pain? The feeling a teenager, or college kid gets when, upon considering coming out to him family, happens upon your editorial. That is pain. Bigotry manifest in the form of a letter to the editor is not “pain.”
Perhaps you should have considered this decision a bit longer. While those of us with compassion, empathy and understanding tend not to be as vocal as the fire-and-brimstone set that was so “pained” by your announcement of a gay couple’s wedding plans, I think the comments on this article speak for themselves. 99 people have commented prior to me. A total of ONE of those commentors agreed with your decision, and wouldn’t even do so annonymously at that. Add my name to the list of those vocally opposed to your decision. That’s 99 to 1.
If your goal was, as stated, “to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments” you actually have done an admirable job. I mean, 99 to 1… I’d say that’s drawing people together. Too bad we were drawn together in opposition to your decision.
As an aside, when publishing a definitive statement about what will and will not be published hereafter, and thus placing yourself squarely on one side of an ideological debate (one which you are clearly going to lose), it seems improper to disclaim the views and opinions expressed in this piece. These are your opinions and you should have the courage of your convictions and stand firm on the bigotry that you have chosen to embrace.
I wonder if the Orthodox Rabbis learned from their Nazi friends. Perhaps they would like to strike the match for the OVENS to have a final solution to these abhorrent fagulas.
I grew up a Jew, my parents used the word fagula. Fortunately they learned and they became enlightened.
God forbid the Jewish Journal would not take the steps to shut down the OVENS of our time.
For a community which has suffered much discrimination you would think the Jewish Community would no better. Apparantly the Ortodox Rabbis who convinced you to take your current stance feel discrimination is acceptalbe; as long as it is not them. We expect this from these Rabbis. We don’t expect it from a non-denominational paper which claims to represent all Jews in the Northern New Jersey area. If one day a member of your family comes out, I dare you to look in their face and tell them why you can’t publish their simcha in the Jewish Standard.
I am flying to NJ this weekend for a bar mitzvah. And I spent my career in publishing. So how horrifying to me—as a Jewish woman and one who cares about civil rights—to see your cowardice. You don’t have the right to call what you do journalism. Have you no shame?
It is obvious that the New Jersey Jewish Standard is under attack by members of the local orthodox community who would like the newspaper to have its policies reflect their own theological views.
The NJ Jewish Standard is the oldest Jewish newspaper in the state.
It has courageously fought the good fight to accurately report news of interest to the Jewish community for many years.
It published the same-sex union announcement because it believed that this item, which reflected the situation of two members of the Jewish community, was valid Jewish news.
Then the bigots descended and threatened the newspaper with a boycott.
This is no laughing matter.
It is a matter of life and death for the paper.
If you care about the future of free journalism then let them know that you will support them if they print news accurately as opposed to becoming a mouthpiece for the most small-minded members of the community.
Dear Editors,
You deserve compassion; it’s often hard to see a way out of what appears to be a binary choice - offend these people, or those people. It can appear even more challenging when each group says that complying with the other’s wishes is hurtful to them. But you knew all of this. I won’t waste your time by repeating the many well-made arguments of those whose comments reached you before my own. Suffice it to say that I identify strongly with many of them. And I have a suggestion - a way out, as it were.
If you really want to draw together the community of your readers - now a much larger group, thanks to the web - then facilitate a conversation. Invite editorials from community leaders, maybe, but also bring people together in each other’s homes to engage with these questions and come to know each other more closely than might be possible through a medium such as this. Invite such gatherings to submit reports and editorials themselves when they manage to meet some criteria you set for inclusiveness. Possibly send your own reporters. You’ve made the news. Now publish it.
And reconsider your decision.
Sincerely,
Gavin White
http://wandreilagh.org
I am also new to your paper. Your editor’s thinking is muddled. A paper should report on issues of interest to the community. Squelching controversial announcements is counter to the fundamentals of journalism. The decision is also quite arbitrary. Do you refer to ordained women as Rabbi? Surely this also troubles Orthodox clergy. Look, the problem is not gay and lesbian couples. The problem is the prejudice within some corners of the Orthodox community. If a few “traditional/Orthodox” rabbis are suffering “pain and consternation” to such an extent that their personal happiness is impaired, for them I suggest cognitive therapy and possibly SSRI’s - not censorship. Your readers are awesome, by the way. You clearly do not deserve them.
And we wonder how a bright young man could be driven to such a state by anti-gay bullies as to jump off a bridge and kill himself? It’s not the bullies; it’s the culture of hate and exclusion, which the Jewish Standard is perpetuating by making this extremely ill-timed and discriminatory decision.
its events like these that caused me to go off the derech. why would i want to be part of a religion where its participants reject me- and even the ones that dont reject me, dont view me as important as the rest of the congregation ?
also, to pretend that this “apology” is going to resolve controversial issues is ignorant at best.
I am deeply disappointed in the recent decision of the Jstandard to exclude same-sex announcements from their paper. You are perpetuating the marginalization of those who need to be included in the most in our community. I urge you to reconsider, and to consider the stakes. This is a situation where non action speaks louder than action. Do the right thing - do the Jewish thing and allow all of our tribe members to be allowed to celebrate equally in the same way.
As a Jewish C.P.A. who happens to gay. I hope you change your discriminatory practice. But what I really think you should do is EXPLAIN the financial considerations that went into your decision. NAME NAMES. Most likely there is a list some place of which advertisers were ready and willing to stop being your customers if you did not begin discriminating immediately. So I say name the names and change your mission statement to. “MAKE MONEY” or stop discriminating.
This is positively medieval. I’m extremely disappointed by this decision. I hope you reconsider and end up doing the right thing.
“We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.” What a disgusting cop-out. Here are a few more formerly ‘divisive’ issues: women’s rights, civil rights for minorities, segregation, the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in Eretz Israel… etc. If the Jewish Standard had any real concern for the pain or consternation of its readers, it would take a stand in a way that values rather than denigrates the relationships of its gay and lesbian Jewish readers. Their pain is not worth less than that of this publication’s Orthodox, straight leadership. If the Jewish Standard had any moral compass it would take an ethically rooted position on the matter rather than simply giving in to the fear generated by hate-mongers. Jewish Standard: Nice try but NO, you are not excused.
this is not a morally neutral decision: some group will be upset either way - by deciding to respect the wishes of one group and not the other, the JS endorses that group’s moral stance as being the right moral stance. In this case, the JS has endorsed the views of those who were upset by the announcement.
that’s tantamount to announcing that the JS believes gay marriage is wrong, and this is highly inappropriate for a newspaper.
I add my voice of disgust at your total lack of backbone in your newly stated policy. How dare you have the nerve to decide which announcements to print and which you shouldn’t. You have established a new low standard. Shame on you!
I’m not Jewish. I’m not gay. I am Christian and straight. However, I am appalled at your decision concerning these reactions.
Each partner graduated from prestigious schools. One works with interfaith groups; the other is highly involved in Jewish religious thought, and is going for his master’s after getting two bachelor’s. One works at a center for blind and disabled kids! These are obviously two amazing, hard-working, caring people. It seems redundant to tell you these facts after you reported them, but apparently you’ve forgotten that your job is to objectively report community events, not to pander to bigots and bullies.
I may not be Jewish, but in my Bible and history classes, I have learned much about the Jewish culture and religion. I know you respect and revere the Scriptures. I know that your people have been going through tough times from ancient times through to the present day. You consider yourselves an oppressed minority. You consider yourselves set apart by God as His chosen people. A community such as yourselves should be especially welcoming of this couple. Instead, you go along with the rest of the world and discriminate against them.
Obviously, the biggest example of Jewish oppression is the Holocaust. It’s taught in every history class from middle school through graduate school. In that devastating event, millions of your recent ancestors were forced to (barely) live in concentration camps, considered inhuman and left to die. Of course, the Germans didn’t discriminate in their discrimination. Anyone who helped Jews or was considered inferior to Aryans was thrown in alongside your people. One of the main groups, apart from Jews, was homosexuals. They wore the same tattered uniforms, along with a pink triangle to identify their sexual minority. But now, you’ve forgotten your fellow sufferers, and have chosen to vilify them as well.
One of the two men graduated from Rutgers University, where a student very recently took his own life because people didn’t respect him as a human being. You should be supporting that community in need, rather than tearing apart your own.
I just want to make it known that I, and many others, find this decision WONDERFUL and APPLAUSE-WORTHY.
All these haters need to take a hike and stop being so politically correct…Jews today care more about being politically and socially correct than standing up for what should be their religious beliefs (not to mention standing up for their country, Israel, but that is not the topic here).
This is not discriminatory in the least…you want discriminatory? Go read CNN.
Shame on you. I am disappointed by your ‘retraction’ and cowardly response to a vocal few. Now, please be more responsible and not take advertising from non-kosher restaurants and food sellers, and non-shomer shabbos observers. If you want to walk that side of the street, you have to put your money where your mouth is. It does not work both ways!
No doubt a decision made under threat of financial loss under pressure from fundamentalist religious bigots.
Gutless. Cowardly. Shameful.
Obviously the editorial and management team of this rag have very few principles when It comes to equality, bullying, discrimination and plain decency.
If this Jewish publication has tried to set a benchmark for outright discrimination, it has been comprehensively successful.
I am DISGUSTED by your apology! You are worried about offending people by posting about a joyous, life cycle event. I was thrilled to read of this couple’s happiness. Now I am offended by the fact that you feel the need to apologize. Now make ME feel better!
The Jewish Standard was presented with a dilemma: publish the apology or lose its advertising - not just the advertisers who are beholden to the Orthodox community, but having other advertisers boycotted by members of the community - at the behest of the heads of that community. The owner of the newspaper had to protect the jobs (and families) of his employees, because the paper would go under without that community’s support. Would you be willing to give up your job, and fire a dozen people - mostly other Jews, and some gay Jews - to make a statement? Would you be willing to subject yourself to vilification in order to protect those people and their jobs? Let’s put the blame where it belongs: on the bigoted, cowardly leaders of the Orthodox community in Bergen County who insisted on this “apology” and also insisted on remaining in the shadows, letting the Jewish Standard take the heat. The way to beat this is to *support* the Jewish Standard with advertising and by doing business with their advertisers so they can stay in existence without the support of the people who hold these views and push them on the rest of us.
What an absolutely disgusting decision. The editorial staff ought to be deeply ashamed for supporting such bigotry and hate. Your decision will cause pain at even greater orders of magnitude than you suppose to protect Orthodox rabbis and their followers from. Is their pain more important, more significant, than those of us that love, cherish, and fight for our gay brothers and sisters?
Dear sirs,
Not only does your editorial decision exemplify extremely poor journalism, an affront to Jewish values and an essentially discriminatory outlook, but more so, it portrays so much that is wrong in both intra- and inter- religious dialogue in the modern world.
If we, as a community, cannot come together to rejoice in the Jewish Union of two loving, observant people (regardless of gender), or at least learn to tolerate others’ wish to celebrate this, how then can we expect those of other (or no) faith to accept or tolerate our beliefs as Jews and/ or Zionists?
Your deplorable judgment is being read about all over the world and it is my sincerest hope that reason will prevail so that you overturn this insensitive, illogical and hipocritical decision and thus start being a an example to be proud of, rather than one to be ashamed of.
Yours,
Jeremy Seeff,
London UK
To treat this loving couple as something less than human by denying their existence is not worthy of a Jew, a Jewish publication or any human. It is inhumane and it is cruel - to them and to the Jewish children they hopefully will raise. I pray those Jews who objected will one day look up from their “giants” and see the Ohr Kodesh and stop striving to case other humans pain. Nothing can be gained by this, but there is so much to lose.
Though not from your community I too was outraged when I heard about your retraction. Why is the negative reaction of a narrow-minded Orthodox community more valid than the celebration of the rest of the community? I think the fact that all of the responses to your retraction speaks volumes! I hope you have come to your senses and will publish not another lame retraction, but an article explaining how you realize you made the wrong decision by giving in to the pressure of homophobes, especially in the wake of the recent suicides.
Sincerely,
Steven P. Nathan
a proud gay rabbi
I want to echo what has been said here—the vast majority of the Jewish world is progressive, Reform/Conservative/Reconstructionist, and supportive of gay marriage and full inclusion of queer people in the Jewish community, including celebrating their simchas publicly. I have great respect for the Orthodox, a respect I hope they will someday extend to the communities I call home.
Journalistic standards demand that you treat a newspaper like it contains news, even if it’s a community announcement, and not like a facebook post to be “liked” by some and “flagged as offensive” by others.
With the recent spate of suicides by queer young people, provoked by bullying and harassment, how dare you shame and hide gay Jews’ joy in order to protect a minority of Orthodox Jews from “consternation.”
I was enthusiastic for the Standard’s decision to publish same-sex life-cycle announcements. I am so disappointed, and outraged to hear of this reversal.
In the retraction the Standard wrote, “The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.”
That simply does not make sense. The standard’s decision doesn’t bring the community together, but drives it apart further. Seeing the faces of loving same-sex couples on the Standard’s pages would have helped those who shun our LGBT brethren to see their humanity and change their opinions. That would have truly helped to bring our community together.
The pain reported by those decrying the move to include such simchas on your pages is the pain of having to face the truth: that heterosexual love is not the only kind of love that God celebrates, no matter what it says in Leviticus.
In the Judaism that helps give meaning to my life, there is no room for bigots and homophobes.
i put my address as great britain, but i would deter from using great if i thought that this was the main jewish paper for my country, how horrendous, can we not remember how minorities made our people suffer over the centuries and even decades!!!
i am only just returning to my faith, or my mothers faith, thank goodness i know that the majority of jewish people do not feel like these bigots who are scared of what they do not understand. otherwise i would be thinking am i doing the right thing.
As an Orthodox Jew, I have much “pain and consternation” regarding your statement. To cave in to pressure from right wing bigots and stop running same-sex ads is disgraceful. To publish an APOLOGY to said bigots is unconscionable. I hope your paper suffers a severe economic loss. You have lost at least one subscriber today.
How very disappointing! The recent spate of suicides by gay teenagers is the direct result of the type of action taken here by the Standard. You are sending young people throughout the Jewish community the message that being gay is bad and that gays and lesbians are inferior. This provides tacit approval for the bullying and abuse of young people who are perceived to be gay. The editors of the Standard need to know that they have blood on their hands when more of these suicides happen. You are perpetuating a culture of bigotry and discrimination. Shame on you!
I just want to add my voice in to this discussion and let you know how proud I was reading about Justin and Avi’s simcha in the Jewish Standard.
I certainly hope they will not be the last of my gay friends to make it into your paper.
As others have pointed out, with last month’s 6 gay teen suicides (and those are only the ones we know about), inclusion of LGBT people in our community really is an issue of pikuach nefesh.
if you really intended to not be “divisive” about this issue, why stop at the homos….shouldn’t you consider not running any/all kind of wedding announcement anymore. How does that sound ? See how all the pain and consternation have gone away now ...
RJ
‘.... pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused…..’ How thin skinned ARE straight people?????Reading an announcement causes PAIN? Discrimination and prejudice causes me PAIN- I would have thought the Jewish community knew something about that.
This is the first and last time that you publish a gay marriage announcement? Awesome, this is the first and last time I read your publication.
I am disgusted and outraged at this kowtowing to the Orthodox community. It is now obvious whom the “most important” Jews are. I’m baffled by this decision. If only it was this easy to control the content in all the “news”-papers. FYI, there are many sects of Judaism, and certainly not all of us are part of the bigoted section. I have a business that advertises with the Jewish Standard and as long as this is the policy we will no longer be advertising.
This is terrible! The Standard should not be silent on LGBT issues!
The only “pain” you have caused is to gay people everywhere, who were just told “Oops, just kidding, we thought your relationships were valid for a split second, but we have changed our minds.”
The paper’s decision to refrain from posting the joyous news of same-gendered couples is an affront to all Progressive Jews. The editorial board might have considered reaching out to some Reform and Conservative Rabbis and Cantors before jumping to their poor decision.
this is from the Jewish Standard’s About Us statement on this website, and it is a lie. Apparently only some people’s pain counts, and it does not give expression to ALL phases of Jewish life.
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.
Shame on you.
Are some Jews more Jewish than others?
Here is a real world measure of sentiment in the Jewish community. Jewish voters in Los Angeles overwhelmingly opposed Prop 8 by a margin of 78-8%. Jewish opposition to Prop 8 – and support for marriage equality – is reported to be the highest of any ethnic or religious voter group.
I cannot help but wonder what they would do when asked by proud parents to print a bona fide wedding announcement of New Jersey gay sons or lesbian daughters who legally married in one of numerous states or foreign countries where it is legal?
There are 11 countires with a national law allowing same-sex marriage and the 13 countries where gay marriage is possible in some jurisdictions including 5 U.S. states the the District of Columbia.
Gay marriage is legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Mexico City, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C.
I find reports on settlers in the west bank and non-egalitarian prayer groups painful and wish they didn’t exist. I really think they are a force for evil in the world and not contributing to the kind of world I want to live in.
Is there a process for me to request you censor news about these activities as well?
The tyranny of the Orthodox strikes again. Discriminate against the gay Jews who announce their marriages or they will be offended. What were the editors of this paper thinking aiding and abetting such blatant bigotry?
Many others here have been more eloquent than I could be, but as a Jew the only solace I can take from this is the vocal response from members of various walks of life - gay and straight - rallying against the now clearly defined prejudices of this publication. Here’s one light unto others that just went dark.
I CELEBRATE the seemingly endless stream of comments expressing support for the LGBTQ community, but I resist the penchant for outrage. As a queer Jew I do not need anyone to validate my relationships. That’s why this petty decision did not cause me any pain. Whether I ever get legally married or not, my love will never be contained by a wedding announcement.
Am I correct in pointing out that every single commentary added above is against the decision of the Jewish Standard to retract a same-sex wedding announcement? It seems like the public has spoken.
I’ve never heard of the Jewish Standard before, and I realize why.
Shame on you. As a Jewish Justice of the Peace in Connecticut, I have performed dozens of same sex marriages. It is legal in many states now. How dare you retract your policy which acknowledged the simcha of two people in love doing something that is approved by state law.
I received this editorial from a rabbi friend and I will be passing it on to everyone I know in Northern NJ.
I support all who have voiced their disdain with this shameful act of bigotry. A newspaper, even one affiliated with a religion, should be more than a mere propaganda rag. It should be a voice of reason and fairness. Instead, by pretending gay and lesbian couples are unworthy of recognition, you have made your paper worthless and irrelevant.
Shame on you…boo…shame, shame, shame…
Add mine to the list of young Jewish professionals (you know, the ones that newspapers like yours are desperately trying to reach in order to stay afloat) who are horrified at this decision.. I promise you that I will never read, subscribe, advertise in, or distribute your paper in the future. And I will encourage others to follow suit. Caused “pain?” Get real. Want to know pain? Try being rejected from the Jewish community because of who you love. Shame, shame, shame on you for privileging bigotry over inclusivity, fear over compassion, and hate over love.
I hope for a day when you can once again see all people as being created in God’s image and I pray for a time when you choose to highlight loving acts of union instead of acts of divisiveness.
I wonder which financial supporter threatened to pull their funding? Do you have no backbone to stand up for the rights of same sex couples to marry? Do you turn your head in the sight of hardship the same way many turned their heads when the Jewish people were fighting for our right to exist? It is a shame that the equalities that were once inflicted on us, you are now choosing to inflict on the gay community. You should be ashamed!
Another major step backwards for equal rights within the Jewish community. What’s sad is that no one is being hurt by this decision except gay Jews. While the Orthodox community might be uncomfortable or even offended by same-sex relationships, the truth is that no damage is done to that community. Two men getting married does not hurt anyone or change someone else’s beliefs. It’s the problem with all those out there (Prop 8) who want to legislate against the gay community. Rather than live and let live, certain groups feel entitled to legislate their morality on to others or at least in this case not give certain members of their community the decency of simply equality.
The level of ignorance displayed by the comments left here is astounding. That so many liberally minded Jews would label those in the Orthodox community as bigots, clearly reflects a lack of understanding of the Orthodox position or the simple definition of the term “bigot”. A bigot refers to one who is hostile towards a particular race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, or religion. And while Orthodox Jews oppose same-sex marriage and view homosexuality as a sin, many (admittedly not all) have no hostility towards people who are gay. It gives us no pleasure to see anyone pained. An Orthodox Jew considers any Jew a brother or sister no matter how religious he or she may be or what their sexual orientation is. Our opposition is to practices that break from our tradition and yet seek to claim that they are Jewish. We have a right to our opinion on how Judaism should be practiced, just as liberal Jews have a right. That doesn’t mean we hate anyone and any suggestion to the contrary is presumptuous and prejudicial. The extremist language being hurled at Orthodox Jews is inappropriate and childish. It piles divisions upon perceived divisions. For the sake of unity, the Orthodox community tolerates the publishing of items and articles that don’t accord with Jewish law as it pertains to the Sabbath and Kashrut. In order to foster unity amongst our different denominations we are all going to have to compromise, not just the Orthodox. What are the liberally minded Jews going to give up?
You should be embarrassed and ashamed by your decision not to announce beautiful simchas such as the upcoming wedding. And it’s the Jews of the community that will have to apologize and explain to our neighbors that we are not intolerant and bigoted, despite the position of “our” paper.
I grew up reading the Jewish Standard—and I grew up in a community that did discuss same-sex marriage and did not validate people who struggled with their sexual identities and orientations. Any “pain” that you caused communal establishment in sharing a Jewish family’s joy is far outweighed by the misery to which you contribute by this continued rejection of gay families. I am appalled by this editorial decision.
Next time another gay kid kills himself because he feels like an outcast or is beaten/maimed/slaughtered due to state- and religion-sanctioned shunning, I hope ye faithful of the editorial staff of the Jewish Double Standard enjoy your pain-and-consternation-free night’s sleep.
Go look up the origin of the pink triangle, you pathetic, forgetful men.
After 13 years of an orthodox day school education, it is times like this that I am proud to be an atheist - because I can’t believe that ANY God would want his creations (i.e. us humans) to hate one another like these Rabbis so clearly hate members of their own community who are homosexuals.
Vayikra 19:16 says “Don’t stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds.” Members of the gay and lesbian community are literally dying from the pain inflicted upon them by people like these Rabbis who harbor such hate in their hearts - which makes it all the more unconscionable that the Jewish Standard chose to apologize for the “pain and consternation” the same-sex announcement may have caused to these homophobic individuals. What happened to “kol yisrael achim” - all of Israel are brothers???
Through a friend, I saw your recent issue where the paper apologized for the pain and consternation that was caused by posting a wedding announcement for a gay couple. I grew up in Bergen County, NJ, and I remember seeing the Jewish Standard every week in our home. I am ashamed to say that we were regular readers of your paper, given your recent editorial decision to no longer publish announcements of same sex couples because of the pain it causes some in the Jewish community. I also would like to request that you stop publishing any wedding announcements. I am unmarried, and reading of the nuptials of happy couples (opposite sex or same sex, it doesn’t matter) causes me pain and consternation. In the same vein, I don’t have any children because of fertility issues—and the bar and bat mitzvah announcements serve as a reminder of the fact that I do not have the children that I want in my life. Perhaps you should stop running these announcements as well, given the pain that they cause.
If I lived in Bergen County or still subscribed, I would ask that you cancel my subscription for the poor editorial policy of excluding specific segments of the community for the inability of some to love thy neighbor.
To the editors of the Jewish Standard: All you have to do is read this long and incredibly thoughtful thread of comments to realize how cowardly and hurtful your decision was. But please remember that many Jews can be a forgiving and open-minded. Please reconsider your decision. Should you reverse your reversal of policy, please, this go around, put some real time and thought into your announcement.
Oh, I see it causes bigots “pain and consternation” when you treat other human beings with respect and equality? Well, I guess we should all just give into bigotry, then! What about all the pain THIS announcement and its casual disregard for the feelings and rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals, and their friends and families, has caused? Or would acknowledging that pain cause too much consternation for the bigots, about whom you are clearly more concerned?
You made a big mistake = WRONG choice. This is so too bad.
I am extremely disappointed to read this news. This is bigotry! All Jews should have the same rights to share their simchas with the community.
“Sensitivities” kept the South segregated until the Supreme Court ruled Jim Crow laws to be unconstitutional in the 1960’s. “Sensitivities” keep Conservative and Reform converts from claiming Israeli citizenship. “Sensitivities” denied women the right to vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. How much longer will civil rights for everyone be denied because of the “sensitivities” of a few?
I am an LGBT Activist known for my weblog which reaches 300,000 people per month. I was distraught t=when I say the newspaper’s excuse and quite frankly found it reprehensible and Unjewish!! Fee free to read my BLOG….
some of what I wrote: ” Clearly your newspaper does not support all Jews, like me and my wife who were married in a Reform Congregation. My orthodox family came to the wedding and no one got hurt!
I Imagine your Newspaper fails to support Reform Judaism as you have clearly made a choice. That said recently a large group of Orthodox Rabbis and Jewish Educators came out in favor of full acceptance of gays and lesbians in their Orthodox congregations and by their families. What gives the view of a select group credence over a view of another select group.” read more http://lezgetreal.com/2010/10/outrageous-discrimination-new-jersey-newspapers-refusal-to-run-gay-wedding-announcements/
As a Jew, I have always been proud of our message of acceptance and Tikun Olam, making the world a better place. Please explain to me how excluding people and making them feel as if they have done something wrong when in reality all they have done is achieve a goal we all strive for, to feel loved, is in any way the right thing, the Jewish thing to do.
These same rabbis who have pressured you into not printing same-sex marriage announcements are the same rabbis who would have protested the end of slavery, since, after all, according to the Torah we are expected to have slaves. So for future reference, the religious extremists do not have the answers. They do not speak for the majority, and they certainly don’t speak for me.
pathetic and sad. what a shame…
congratulations to the couple. I hope you take comfort in the support you have received here and that this doesn’t tarnish the perfect joy of your wedding. the jewish community welcomes you as a couple and appreciates your boldness.
Having just read the announcement from North Carolina, after a friend of mine posted it on facebook, I have to say that my initial pride at the progressiveness of your publication has been followed by extreme disappointment in your decision. While I can appreciate your desire not to alienate segments of your readership, I can assure you that your decision not to run announcements of this nature in the future does not accomplish that purpose. Your decision is offensive to gay, lesbian and bisexual jews, their friends and families, and I dare say most people with any sense of human decency. I urge you to reconsider.
Maybe we should round up all the gay’s and put them somewhere that they can’t be seen at all. Maybe a camp somewhere.
And while we are at it, why don’t we round them up in the middle of the night with AK47’s, put them in trains to concentration camps, force them to wear an upside down pink triangle, tattoo a number on their forearm and force them to be invisible while we wait for the pure race to be born?
In making this decision the JS has done nothing but to step to the same lever of reasoning, behavior and mentality of those who persecuted, prosecuted and victimized the Jewish people 60-something years ago. You are now no better than those monsters. Is this how you honor and preserve the memory of the countless martyrs? Is this the way you preserve their martyrdom and honor their sainthood, by joining in the same type of mentality and reasoning that brought them to such horrible torment?
As a non-Jew, but a firm believer in G-d, I am appalled, and furious that you have chosen bigotry over deliverance; that you have chosen the chains of ignorance over the freedom of the love of G-d. That you have desecrated the lives and the graves of those who died so you can live your live as an out and proud JEW (and in that I mean JEW, lest you forget that at one point you had to hide your own faith and retreat to a closet so you could survive).
A Jewish colleague of mine pointed out the dustup over your recent inclusion of a gay couple’s engagement. I’m gay, but not Jewish, and my colleague and I have a great respect and understanding for one another as humans who happen to be minorities. I am saddened to see a publication that represents an oppressed minority actively work to exclude members of the Jewish faith. Last month I attended Yom Kippur services for the first time with my gay Jewish friends. A passage in the prayer book actually referenced gay and lesbian Jews, and compared the challenge of having to potentially hide one of their dual identities to that of Jews who fled to Spain and had to pretend to be Christian. I was impressed to see a faith so progressive to acknowledge the challenges gay and lesbian people face in being their true selves (both as LGBT and as Jews). Let that sort of wisdom, compassion, and love be your legacy not exclusion.
There are not words strong enough to shame you. Not even in Yiddish.
Absurd decision to issue that apology. Are you now going to apologize to all the pain you’ve caused to the other side? Very embarrassing, editorial staff.
“...have made us aware that publication of the announcement caused pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused….”
Hitler finally won. You are cowards.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Seems too ring a bit true?
I remember that the London Times used to refuse wedding announcements if the woman called herself “Ms” rather than “Miss”. I expect you’ll look back at this announcement in embarrassment in a few years, just as the Times does now.
Shame on you.
Tell us NJ Jewish Standard about:
- the ‘pain and consternation’ caused to the proud parents, friends and family of those whose loving unions are so publicly being rejected as unworthy in the eyes of your publication;
- the “pain and consternation’ caused by centruies of ostracism and extreme vitriole that has lead to gay bashings and murder;
- or about the ‘pain and consternation’ caused by rejection, treatment as less than human and as social pariahs that have driven our youth to suicide like the young talented gay Rutgers student whose shame lead him to jump off a bride in your backyard last week;
- or about the ‘pain and consternation’ caused to the vast majority of Jews who strongly disagree with the use of Orthodoxy as justification for hate and homphobia by right wing bigots.
- or about the ‘pain and consternation’ caused by systemic hatred propagated by religious fanatics that have promoted laws to put gays to death around the world. Are our Orthodox brethren comfortable in the company of such beliefs?
- or about the ‘pain and consternation’ caused to gays and lesbians who were rounded up and murdered alongside Jews and Gypsies in German concentration camps. Are Gay lives valued less or less worthy?
- or the ‘pain and consternation’ caused by profound loss from AIDS, the gay holocaust, due to years of official indifference and the view that gay lives were expendable.
Is the ‘pain and consternation’ from the publication of a joyous wedding announcement greater to bigots than to the victims of their bigotry?
Truly shameful.
Either publish them for everyone, or don’t publish for anyone.
I hope you will reconsider this capitulation and follow your original instinct regarding marriage announcements. If doing the right thing isn’t reason enough, losing the most progressive portion of your readership might be.
I have already posted, but was finally reading many of the other posts, including that of my sister, Juliet Barr, a great Jewish Educator in Bergen and Rockland counties. I then saw my awesome nephew Zachary Barr’s wonderful Letter. Also an educator in the Jewish community outside of Boston, he is the kind of young Jewish adult that we wish our children might become—committed to community, education, and culture.
In an attempt to draw more attention to his articulate and intelligent post, I hit the flag/comment button, thinking I could comment on his great letter. What I didn’t know is that by hitting that button, I was flagging it and unwittingly suggesting it was inappropriate. So I resend it here. SORRY ZACH! I Love you.
Uncle Geoffrey
Dear Ms. Boroson,
I’m sure you’ve received a flood of emails following your editorial earlier today, and I do hope that you’ll take the time to read mine as well. As a young, recently out Jew, I consider myself lucky to have been raised in a familial and Jewish community where a “gentleman’s agreement” to keep my sexuality private seemed destined for the history books, not the newspapers. Imagine my disappointment to find that the Jewish Standard was kow-towing to a minority of the Jewish community behind the polite semantics of wishing not to appear divisive.
To me (and many others, I’m sure), the Jewish community has always been one that works to include and care for all of its members. As one kehillah, we applaud our philanthropists and shun only our most sinister evil-doers; after all, “a Jew is a Jew.” Yet you have determined, through rescinding the marriage advertisement, which Jewish voices fit within the cannon of Judaism, and which ones shall be cast out. How can you, as the authority for a newspaper that claims to unite diverse branches of Judaism, make such a judgment call?
I have never been faced with a choice between my religion and my sexuality. Perhaps I have lived a charmed life where Jewish avenues in which I participate either avoid making judgment calls, or make ones that specifically make me feel more welcome. But as a Jew who aspires to marry Jewish, raise Jewish children in a Jewish home and synagogue, and works full time for the Jewish movement, you have offered me little hope. I sincerely wish that this is not indicative of all multi-denominational organizations out there, and that, as you hope, this will be an issue that can unite Jews one day soon, and not divide them.
Sincerely yours,
Zachary Barr
You’re ignoring your own mission statement which reads:
“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. ”
... which is precisely why I find it difficult to identify as a Jewish person. Or a person of any organized religion, for that matter.
Your editorial is disturbing on multiple levels. The most fundamental problem, however, is that it promotes hate in a world already laden with it. As a newspaper, you are charged to report news and promote discourse. As a newspaper for a specific community, your goal is to promote community and create bonds. You have clearly done that, but you have done it through hate. And hate is not Jewish. You have failed as a group and you have made our world worse.
Shame on you!
Despicable and insulting decision. You should be ashamed.
You call yourself a newspaper with journalistic integrity? You call yourself professionals?
You’re supposed to report on what’s happening in the Jewish world, which includes gays and lesbians. Instead, you chose to take sides in a cultural debate.
I’ll be looking for my Jewish news elsewhere from here on out.
This editorial is outrageous. Why should the feelings of a few orthodox rabbis outweigh the rights and feelings of that couple? It is the orthodox that create division, not the rest of us. In the wake of the recent tragedy at Rutgers, the orthodox rabbis who spoke out should reconsider the ramifications of their bigotry, hatred, and close-mindedness. Tyler Clementi’s death is a stain on our nation. The rabbis who condemned homosexual marriage bare part of the responsibility for creating the national culture of intolerance that shaped Clementi’s world view. They should be ashamed of themselves, and perhaps take a refresher course in Jewish values and ethics.
While i was in northern NJ you often told me how proud the Jewish Standard was to consider itself one of the best Jewish newpapers in the USA. I am sorry to learn of your decision. Like it or not, we live in the year 2010/ 5771. Wake up to the reality. Your refusal to publish such announcements is a refusal to recognize the realities of our time. Since I retired in 2003 , I moved to southern Maine. I worship in congregations in both Maine and nearby NH. There are Jews who are gay and lesbians. They worship in these congregations as well, and are treated as everyone else. I am proud to be part of a Jewish community who welcomes all Jews.
I urge the standard to reverse its decision. If you are still one of the best Jewish newpapers in the country and really represent the entire Jewish community of Bergen county, then do the right thing and reverse you decision now.
I’m thrilled to see the COMMENTS section regarding this policy change. Do you feel like you’ve drawn the community closer to each other or closer to your paper? I believe some of the words used to describe your paper and your policies have now included “bigot”, “embarassement”, “homophobia”, “biased”, and “shame”, to name a few. I don’t know who the “group of rabbis” is that you took advice from (and it seems thus far they have declined to make themselves known and stand up publicly with the courage of their convictions) but they have certainly been nothing but divisive within the Jewish community. I hope this serves your agenda well.
We were stunned to read that you had decided to change your policy on publishing announcements for same-sex couples “rather than drive its many segments apart.” Based on your brief Editorial, it seems that you had chosen to attend to the “deep sensitivities” of the traditional/Orthodox community without regard for the equally deep sensitivities of other groups including the Jewish lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered communities.
For generations, the lives, feelings and issues of the LGBT communities have been pushed aside to insure the comfort, and protect the sensitivities, of others. The fact that you would apologize for the pain you caused one segment of your community by making a decision that “caused pain and consternation” to another segment of your community was both sad and reprehensible. It is also naïve to think that by reversing your policy, this matter would be resolved. Based on the “firestorm” created in response to this decision, it seems clear that we are far from resolution.
As President of New Jersey’s Lesbian and Gay Havurah, and speaking on behalf of the NJLGH Board, I would ask that you stand behind your stated commitment “to draw the community together.” I understand that you now believe that the Jewish Standard may have acted too quickly in making the decision to stop publishing same-sex announcements. We are encouraged by this first step and fully support your plan to talk with those beyond the traditional/Orthodox community as well. In doing so, I expect you will find that your recent decision, “not to run such announcements in the future,” will ultimately drive many segments of the Jewish community apart rather than bring them together.
If you would like to discuss this matter further with me and/or members of our Board, please contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
MJ Weston, President
New Jersey’s Lesbian and Gay Havurah
The New Jersey Jewish Standard acted correctly in publishing the same-sex couple’s wedding announcement. Its subsequest retreat represents an act of moral cowardice. GLBT Jews are as real and as to be respected as are all within the Jewish community. The paper should stand for Jewish inclusion and our core value of Ahavat Yisrael (love of fellow Jews, and Jewish diversity), and not cave in to those who seek to further Sinat Chinam (senseless hatred and bigotry). I pray that the New Jersey Jewish Standard does better.
Is there a difference between hateful Christians and hateful Jews? As a gay Jewish man, I cannot believe that you caved in to a bunch of right-wing bigots - doing the same thing to the gay Jewish community as was done to all Jews for the past 5,000 years. The orthodox rabbis are the same as the Nazis during the holocast.
And if they are so devoted the word of Torah, why don’t they kill their own children if they show disrespect for parents or kill any Jew for wearing shatnes—both are punishable by death according to Leviticus 18.
Your paper is a shonda on the Jewish culture.
Your editorial position is not only embarrassing to me as a Jew who believes in accepting all Jews for who they are (including homophobic Orthodox Jews), it also discredits the journalistic integrity of your publication. You can talk all you want about “deep sensitivities” but its pretty clear to me this is about you placing advertising revenue ahead of integrity. And that is even more embarrassing to all Jews.
I read with great pain and disappointment your statement regarding your decision to withdraw same-sex marriage ads. I am at loss to understand how this decision comports with the Jewish values with which I was raised, and indeed, with the “Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews with a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community,” signed by more than 150 Orthodox rabbis and community leaders as of mid-summer, which reaffirms the religious obligation to treat all people equally and with respect. Nor do I understand the
decision to privilege the pain of some members of the Jewish community over others (who include not just same-sex couples, but also their families, friends, and those who practice a Judaism of nondiscrimination and respect), especially given my understanding that
the Standard is nondenominational, and same-sex unions are accepted in non-Orthodox Jewish movements.
I urge you to reverse this decision, and to act promptly to repair the damage that this decision has done - and continues to do—to the Jewish community.
Thank you.
Now that the Jewish Standard is in the business of apologizing, the editors should consider a written apology to Justin Rosen and Avi Smolen. These two young men chose to spread the news of their impending marriage through the Standard, and have been met with freshly institutionalized homophobia. Now their wedding day will be indelibly marked as another skirmish in the American culture wars. The Standard need not make this second apology available to all its readers, but civility demands that it be offered.
Thisis a truly shameful decision.
Two young people, devoted to each other and the Jewish community, chose to share their joy with us through your publication. This is a simcha that is celebrated by all but a few small-minded Orthodox rabbis. By quickly bending to the rabbis’ demands and forbidding other same sex couples from announcing weddings in your pages, you send a clear message to LGBTQ Jews, their families and friends that our lives and our Judaism are not valid.
This is truly an embarrassment. I hope you turn away from such hate and reconsider your policy.
It is outrageous that your paper has bowed to pressure from a few fundamentalist extremists who feel threatened by a gay couple’s simcha. The film, “Trembling Before God” demonstrates there are plenty of gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews living lives of fear and silence, scared of living honestly. Your pathetic editorial decision not to publish a same sex wedding announcement further silences gay Orthodox Jews. But it will not make them—or glbt Jews of any denomination—go away.
I too find the decision offensive, cowardly and ill-considered. There are many non-Orthodox practices that offend some Orthodox Jews. To pick this issue suggests to me that the rabbis in question were motivated as much by their fealty to Torah as by their more secular bigotry against gays. As other readers have noted, unless the Standard is prepared to pull all advertisements for events that in any way could be seen as endorsing a non-Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, the Editors ought not make such a targeted, divisive policy masquerading as a palliative.
Shame on you for siding with bigots.
I do want to add one more ocomment to my previous postings. Some of you out there, i’m sure, support this decision because you believe that you really don’t hate gay people, and therefore are not bigoted, just “concernipated”.
I have been listening to that one my whole life. And guess what? I actually believe you—mostly. Not all bigotry is based in hatred. some of it based upon a belief in (a wholly imaginary) superiority, though my experience is that if you keep scratching at that superioirty, eventually you uncover hatred and its twin sister, contempt.
Of course you don’t hate us. you really cannot be bothered too much about us, except to explain how “pained” and “Consternipated” you are that we would dare tp say that our lives are as valuable as yours. Your lives, your beliefs, your families, your children, your spouses, your version of Judaism, your synagogue, your rabbis, yiour are just more important and more valid than ours, so much so that you are willing to legally disadvantage us, to exclude us from the simchas of the community, just to make that point.
And really, where is the hate in that?
I’m deeply offended by your actions in this matter. It places the New Jersey Jewish Standard on par with publications, by that cult in Salt Lake City, that verbally bash members of the gay community. How sad that you look askance upon two men who are committing themselves to a relationship based on love and respect. I no longer have respect for your publication.
Rightly or wrongly, the actions of one jew reflect on us all and with this apology you have embarrassed the jewish people as a whole. There was nothing brave about publishing an announcement for a same sex marriage but apologizing for having done so displays a despicable cowardice and a complacency in the face of bigotry and hatred that so fundamentally contradicts the values that bind us as a people and a culture despite our often disparate religious views. People that don’t just accept intolerance but promote and condone it have no place in the jewish community or in any community.
thank you
What a spineless, bigoted reaction. You make me ashamed to be a Jew. After all the discrimination we have been through as a people, you turn your back on those who are obviously discriminated against. Violently in some cases.
With so much hate in this world, do we need to censor love?
I was raised across Jewish denominations to believe that everyone was made b’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image of G-d, and that I was obligated as a Jew, above all, to treat my neighbor as myself. I’m so disappointed to see a community paper succumb to this narrow and bigoted position because of pressure from a tiny minority that seeks to use Judaism to exclude and oppress.
If the merits of these commandments aren’t enough to convince all, I’d also point out that the mainstream Jewish community keeps asking why it’s not engaging more young people. One of the reasons is because the majority of our generation doesn’t see any difference between the love shared by our LGBT friends and our straight friends, and it’s shocking and hurtful when our communal institutions do. LGBT individuals and families face discrimination in their workplaces, schools, our military and in the eyes of their government. Most recently this systematized abuse led to the suicide of a gay child in your very own backyard at Rutgers. The Jewish community should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
This is absolutely abhorrent. Shame on this paper for bowing down to the rabbis. You are supposed to be a newspaper that stands for the truth. You stand for very little now. I will encourage everyone I see with your paper to throw it away. It will be appropriate for your rag to be in the trash.
With all the hatred and killing going on in this world. With on tribe trying to annhiliate another, with one sect of Muslim killing the other, with the world poised on the edge of a Nuclear conflagration, THIS is what the Rabbi’s focus on?????? These alleged representatives of a loving and all encompassing God take this stand?
Your mission statement says that you are for the ENTIRE Jewish Community, NOT for any one segment yet because one group expressed “hurt” you decide to hurt the rest of us?
What about the hurt you have now infliced on every family of a gay child to say nothing about the rest of us. Clearly WE don’t count. You advertize non Kosher restaurants. try and flaunt the “Jewish Connection” of celebrites who have one Jewish parent and often NOT the mother, people who have either never practice Judaism or never been raised in it, or in fact practice the “other” faith. How do you reconcile such hypocrisy?
Shame on you.
Jewish people doing Jewish things! What a shondah!
Are you a Jewish publication or an Orthodox Jewish publication?
If the former, this is an announcement about Jewish people, ostensibly readers.
Decide!
This is revolting. I hope the flurry of negative comments to this make you rethink your decision.
Journalism: Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comfortable. Jewish Standard? ummm nope… Oxymoron of a name actually. Perhaps you should re-name your paper: Jewish Extremism: Dedicated to Perpetuating the Views of Bigots, Extremists and Dictators.
You should further consider your decision to not run these announcements. We all have the opportunity to make a positive change in this world.
Way to become the oppressor, JS!
Where do we live? Saudi Arabia? Since when are a group of rabbis deep sensitivities more important than actually doing a newspaper’s job, which is reporting for the community they supposedly represent?
As a non-Orthodox Gay man, I know from personal experience that there are quite a few Ultra-Orthodox men who long for a good, well-rounded loving relationship with another man. But the choice they have traditionally been given is either ostracism and shunning by their community, or marrying a woman, having children, and “fooling around” with other men secretly.
How do I know this? Because I have been propositioned quite a few times by such men; I am not closeted, not in their community, but for many years worked in a neighborhood filled with businesses run by the Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox . They saw me as “safe to fool around with”, and, often more importantly, safe to talk with about things that were forbidden to discuss in their community.
I think this situation is very sad.
The Rebbes who objected to the wedding announcement are desperately afraid that their young men and women will find out that Jewish same-sex couples are now marrying each other and living happy lives. They know that, given the choice, some staunch members of their community would also marry same-sex partners, so they want you to help them pretend it’s not happening.
Shame on the Jewish Standard for supporting homophobic Rebbes by demeaning and belittling other Jews. When you do this, you drive another nail through the hearts of the Ultra-Orthodox who do not want to give up their family and community, but who are anguished daily by having to pretend to be heterosexual.
Where are your journalistic insticts? You missed a great opportunity for a news story right under you nose. Your recent headline should have read: A Few Rabbis Claiming “Deep Sensibilities” Try to Censor the Press to Marginalize Jewish Happy Gay Couple.
I am a gay man who was raised Catholic and recently married a Jewish man in Vermont. Since my relationship with my husband started I have felt nothing but welcomed and continually embraced by the Jewish community - there was a heartening feeling of acceptance and a shared sense of community that came from a shared love of g-d and little else. The logic behind your decision is circular at best and totally offensive. Shame on you.
How sad. You have instantly rendered your publication, irrelevant.
This is an astounding disply of journalistic cowardice in the face of bald-faced bigotry. You should be deeply ashamed.
I hope you have seen this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/roband/sarah-silverman-on-gay-teen-suicide-l98
You are to blame.
This decision is absolutely outrageous. For this paper to give succor to the bigotry of a segment of it’s readers is contemptible, to say the least.
This publication should be ashamed! Caving in to those who are intolerant and discriminating against a group that have suffered tha same manner of persecution as those of the Jewish faith is hypocritical at best, and IMO an affront to God. This act, as are all others, will be judged accordingly.
You cannot hide behind a curtain of supposed neutrality. When you decided who is included/excluded based on sexual orientation, race, religion, or gender, you are passing judgement on that identity. By actively excluding gay marriage announcements while publishing straight marriage announcements, this newspaper is clearly showing its predjudice.
It’s disappointing that in a climate where Jews need community and solidarity in order to overcome discrimination, your newspaper is going out of its way to create alienation and bow to bigotry.
Well, now we know why so many gay kids are killing themselves. They see how welcome they are in the bigoted “orthodox” world. (Orthodox Judaism, orthodox/fundamental Christianity, orthodox/Talibanistic Islamists, orthodox Sikhs, Hindus—funny how all these fundamentalisms speak exactly the same language and hate all the same people. When they’re not hating each other.)
Thank goodness I live in Canada, where ALL citizens are treated equally.
I join my voice with all those above who have been saddened to see your publication bow before senseless objections. Your paper is aimed at Jewish Americans, who value the pluralism that makes our country great, and that enables Jews of all types to practice their religion in freedom and peace. Over the centuries, Judaism has gone through many changes and adjustments. For example, can you imagine the uproar from the common contented man when the Rabbis put an end to polygamy? It’s certainly not indicated in the Torah! ... So, we must not let bigots scare us into abandoning our ideals of fairness and justice. Hope to see gay marriage announcements re-instated in your publication.
The concrete that settles around organized religion is an amazingly toxic, harmful, and powerful substance - in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
To me, it is apparent that in G-d’s great scheme of creation, homosexuality is a natural, G-d given reality. And what better couple to exemplify this than Avichai David Smolen and Justin Taylor Rosen?
When G-d’s reality speaks it is time to listen.
I respect the Orthodox group’s right to ask that their hypocritical religious position guide the policy of the newspaper. It is up to us to respectfully and courageously maintain a free press.
Would you feel the same if this group asked that all news about another minority group be disregarded?
This is a shanda.
Avi Smolen, one of the two men who placed the announcement about his union with his new husband, Justin Rosen, has now come out with an interview.
These are the same two men who proudly invited the entire community to share in the joy of them and their families in their commitment to each other for life and love.
Then the local orthodox rabbis appeared on the scene to say how much “pain and consternation” ( what a great line, I, too, may use it in the future) this announcement caused them. Actually, I think the rabbis stole this line from an ad for hemorrhoid creme.
Some of them were so upset they could not concentrate on their prayers.
However, modest men that they are, they all remained anonymous so as not to draw attention away from your paper.
How considerate of them.
Avi Smolen, in his interview is unbelievable.
He is the epitome of sympathy and understanding.
A true mensch.
May he and Justin have much nakhes and happiness for their entire lives together.
May they be a light unto Israel and teach us how true Jews, those who love and celebrate their love openly, live their lives.
And may the NJ Jewish Standard do the right thing and truly report on the lives of all Jews in our community.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/interview-we-dont-hide-who-we-are/
(Also submitted to the editor)
We made a mistake. When the Jewish Standard printed the wedding announcement of a local Jewish gay couple, we, the supportive silent, didn’t vociferously applaud this natural first for your paper. More of us should have publically said mazal tov to both the gay couples who are Jewishly celebrating their partnerships and marriage and to the Jewish Standard for celebrating the entire Jewish community by printing it.
Clearly, an intelligent thoughtful publication such as the Standard would have thought about the fact there would be some push-back from the more right-wing that would not approve. But make no mistake, representing the liberal majority of the diaspora in the world, the US and our community, the Jewish Standard ONLY speaks for the entire Jewish Community when it acknowledges and embraces gay as well as straight partnerships. Do not mistake the position of either the loudest or the most strictly Orthodox for either the majority or the most authentically and legitimately Jewish.
When our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters want celebrate their partnerships and marriages in their Jewish community, we must be there to support and welcome their growing Jewish families in our synagogues and in our families. This is our job as Jewish communal leaders. This includes Orthodox Jews who are relieved to see growing public acknowledgement of their gay family members and friends. This is what it means to uphold Torah as ways of pleasantness and peace (darchei noam v’shalom), to recognize all as created in the image of Gd (b’tzelem elohim), welcome guests (haknasat orchim) and countless other Jewish principles. This only strengthens the next generation of Jews.
In this age of extremism and fundamentalism, the Jewish Standard and the Jewish community can not afford to be taken hostage by the most conservative (small “c”) among us. We must not allow the most unaccepting and right-wing among our leadership to speak for us as a community. Rather, it is cruel, irresponsible and a dereliction of duty as rabbis and communal leaders to put our heads in the sand and turn away. We only need to look to the horrible suicide of the Rutgers freshman on the GW Bridge for being publically shamed by his homosexuality and the and the marginalization of the moderate majority by the ultra-Orthodox in our beloved Israel to see how insidious and dangerous this is. If the Standard wants to continue to speak for and represent the entire Jewish community, it must immediately say to our right-wing Orthodox brothers that while we might try to understand their fear and sensitivities, we cannot live by it.
Rabbi Leana Moritt, Tenafly NJ
Thresholds: For the Jewishly Curious (in Bergen County)
Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation
I just moved to California from New Jersey and I arrive here to learn that my own beloved newspaper has taken the shameful path of bigotry. You have heaped insult upon injury to gay and lesbian Jews but worse: you’ve added to the misery of all free people by embracing the hate-mongering that is now the ruination of our nation. How easily you forget that the hatefulness you now embrace is the some emotion that made Jews and gay people indistinguishable from the Nazi and Ku Klux Klan. My heart breaks for the families who children kill themselves when our institutions breeds the kind of bigotry the JS is now embracing. Shame on you! Shame, shame, shame!
Leviticus 18:22 - read a book. I agree - the non-kosher restaurant ads should go too.
Just so I’m clear on this :
“The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart”
Really?
According to the North American Jewish Data Bank, as of 2002, self-identified Orthodox Jews made up 10% of the total population of the US Jewish community. 2002 data shows the number of US (as of 2006) to be 6,452,030 persons, so we can say, comfortably, that there are approximately 650 thousand Orthodox Jews throughout the country, allowing for some fairly impressive population increases, but what the heck, let’s be generous.
The same studies show that a disproportionate number of Orthodox Jews are settled in the NE states. 68% of the Orthodox population vs. 41% of the overall Jewish population to be precise. That gives us 438.6 thousand Orthodox Jews in the North East states, out of a total of about 3.1 million Jews, roughly 14-15%. Let’s presume that holds true for the whole area, including New Jersey.
In 2002, NJ self-reported 480 thousand jews. Using the statistics above, we arrive at 72 thousand Orthodox Jews and 408 thousand “other” (Conservative, reform, etc..).
Many statistics imply that 1/10 people is queer. Let’s be generous and cut that by 25% and say that somehow being Jewish makes us less likely to be anything but hetero. That leaves 7.5% of the Jewish population of New Jersey, which is 36 thousand queer Jews. I think we can safely say that these are people who can be reasonably expected NOT to object to gay marriage.
Exactly HOW do you call catering to the exclusionary preferences of 15% of the population as an attempt to “draw the community together” when you can be pretty sure that 7.5% of the population will be completely alienated by it, and the overwhelming majority of the other 78.5% will be outraged by it?
Journalistic objectivity and fact-checking seems to be in as short a supply as common human decency and respect around your offices.
Sincerely,
Arnon Clark
Queer, Jewish and able to do math.
I am outraged and saddened by the decision of the Jewish Standard to end the printing of celebratory news of gay and lesbian couples, or news of any kind for any Jewish family. If the Jewish Standarad is truly a newspaper reflecting the opinions and lives of Jews, then it should refelct the opinions and lives of all Jews. If rabbis of one denomination can be so persuasive as to convince the Jewish Standard to cease their printing of such news, then I hope and pray that rabbis of other denominations can quickly influcen the paper to returning to is practice of doing what Jews do - celebrating simchas and honoring Jewish families of all kinds!
As a former Bergen County resident and the cousin of a gay, Orthodox male who died from AIDS and from hiding his true self in order to fit into his beloved Jewish community, I’m outraged at my hometown Jewish paper and the lack of progress that has been made in the last couple of decades. If journalism’s goal is to hold up the light of truth for all to see, the editorial board of the Jewish Standard has just made the world a darker place for all of us. I am saddened by and disappointed in a publication I normally enjoy reading. Count me among those who have been pained.
What shame you have brought to our people, people besieged for 2 thousand years, by bigots and now to be the bigots. Shameful. The finger of hatred points in our direction today, because of you.
Ana Meyers
All I have to say is, when you go to temple next Rosh Hashanah and cast away your sins, you better be driving a bread truck.
Since it is not the norm for The Jewish Standard to mock itself (except perhaps in its Purim edition) one assumes that it was an oversight, (or divine intervention?) for the statement declaring that the Standard would no longer publish same-sex marriage announcements to appear in close proximity to its editor’s call for “a time of unity” among all religious streams- Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, or secular.” The effect left me alternating between laughing and crying.
In December 2009, an astounding 700 students turned out for a forum at Yeshiva University’s main campus which sought to address the painful conflict of being a gay Orthodox Jew. While this in no way indicates a new flexibility in Orthodoxy’s approach to gay marriage vis-à-vis halacha, it certainly suggests that the issue is not so taboo as to be unmentionable in a non-denominational publication such as The Standard. The “group of rabbis” who persuaded The Standard to censor itself could learn much from their students, who are evidently open to a new level of sensitivity on this issue.
One can only speculate on what was said in the “discussions” between the editors of The Standard and representatives of the Orthodox community, which led to The Standard’s about-face on this issue. While the statement mentioned causing “pain and consternation” in that community, surely running ads for treif restaurants and publicizing Saturday events that lead to the desecration of the Shabbat (biblical punishment: death by stoning) must also be uncomfortable for the Orthodox. Why is same-sex marriage- accepted by the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, as well as by many in the Conservative movement- singled out for such scorn? And what of the pain and consternation caused to the gay Jewish community by The Standard’s decision?
Steven Eidman
So you have chosen to drive out the gay part of the community and not draw them together? Choosing one group of people over another. What if the Orthodox community doesn’t like announcements of marriages of women who’ve converted under a Reform Rabbi? Will you push them out too?
congratulations! you’ve reinstated the dreaded selection of world war 2. ok, so here is your chance to reverse a bad decision. are you brave enough to take that step? are you brave enough to even print this comment?
As a gay man, as a Jew, as a New Jerseyan by upbringing, and as a human being, I find your apology to the Orthodox rabbis to be disgusting, cowardly, and hurtful. It makes me sick.
Somehow a small portion of your readership has experienced “pain and consternation” at the announcement that two people have fallen in love and wish to spend the rest of their lives together. What kind of heartless human being would feel “pain and consternation” at the joyful celebration of two people who love each other? What about the pain and consternation caused to gay Jews and their families and friends who now know that their life events are not worthy of being publicly celebrated in a community newspaper? What’s even more callous and disgusting is that this happened several days after a gay New Jersey college student killed himself after his roommate decided to air live video of him “making out with a dude.” It’s because of decisions like yours — decisions that encourage the idea that gay relationships are never, ever as good as straight relationships — that young gay people decide to kill themselves.
It seems to me that this was a business decision. You were clearly worried that the powerful Orthodox community would cancel its subscriptions and its advertising if you persisted in reporting the news an an unbiased manner.
Well, a few years from now, you’re going to look upon yourselves and your decision with great regret, embarrassment, shame, and remorse — just like businesses in the 1960s that used to cater to racism out of fear of losing money or rocking the boat. One might say that a greater sin than being intolerant and a bigot is to encourage and enable such intolerance and bigotry. At least the bigots don’t know any better. To your shame and discredit, you clearly knew better but chose not to follow your conscience.
I don’t see how this is any different from the newspaper in Maine that apologized last month for showing American Muslims celebrating Ramadan on September 11.
I’d never heard of your newspaper — it doesn’t publish in the county where I grew up. I’m more familiar with the New Jersey Jewish News, which I think my parents subscribe to. So, congratulations; your cowardly, hurtful business decision has broadened your public profile.
agree with all the above sentiments
What were you thinking? We are Jews. Was not Mr. Smolen and Mr. Rosens Jewish soul at Sinai with yours and mine? They were worthy of seeing the face of God, worthy to be made a nation but in your wisdom are not worthy to be counted with the rest of us…. not worthy to be mentioned in your newspaper? Your ignorance and bigotry is shameful.
We were so thrilled to read the wedding announcement of Avi Smolen and Justin Rosen in the September 24th issue of The Jewish Standard. How life-affirming to see the paper embrace the 21st century and recognize the upcoming union of these two upstanding young Jewish men, both of whom demonstrate deep commitment to their faith/religion.
Needless to say, we were appalled to pick up this week’s issue of the Standard and read the “statement” published at the top of the Editorial page. In three short paragraphs, the paper managed not only to undo the good will it had shown the week before; its policy flip-flop perpetuated bias and discrimination and generated significant ill will to readers like me who celebrate diversity.
According to the paper’s own website, since 1931 The Jewish Standard has been the Jewish voice of northern New Jersey . The Jewish voice. Not the Orthodox Jewish voice. Moreover, the paper’s mission states that “(t)he 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.” Presumably, the Standard means those phases of life that involve everyone, gays and lesbians alike.
Yet, in choosing to side with the “pain and consternation” of the Orthodox community and pander to its “deep sensitivities,” the paper has in fact identified a “phase of Jewish life” unworthy of expression in its pages.
Furthermore, The Standard states that it “has always striven to draw the [Jewish] community together, rather than drive its many segments apart.” In protecting the Orthodox community from any further firestorms, the Standard inflicts pain and consternation on the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative communities, thereby driving a wedge between itself and the very communities it claims to serve.
They say that all politics are local. We need go no further than our own backyard to see how true that is. Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University , chose to take his own life last week rather than suffer the scourge of homophobia. Tyler is not alone. Gay teen suicide is epidemic because of a meteoric rise in anti-gay bullying and harassment. By refusing to publish same-sex marriage announcements, The Jewish Standard is allowing itself to be bullied; it is abdicating its constitutional right of free speech; and it is perpetuating homophobia. These results are chilling to us.
Sincerely,
Debbie Zlotowitz and Rick Greenberg( the writers are married and Rick is the president of Barnert Temple, Franklin Lakes,
I don’t know a single Jewish person who doesn’t support gay marriage. Is this a Jewish newspaper? Who are you representing? Most Jews are liberal and believe G-d made gay people and that’s OKAY.
Maybe you can reach a compromise whereby same-sex Jewish engagement announcements are allowed, but only under the condition that the gay couple wear prominent pink triangles.
The “pain and consternation” cause to the traditional/Orthodox community must have been considerable.
They must be questioning the value of their lives, as so many closeted LGBT people do. They must be worried that if anyone finds out that they are Orthodox, they will be ostracized by the rest of the Jewish community, particularly their loved ones, just as so many closeted LGBT people are. They must view their Orthodoxy with great shame, as so many closeted LGBT people do. They must be wondering how they can be both Jewish and Orthodox, as so many closeted Jewish LGBT people are.
After all, why else would you allow their sensitivities to override those of a population that is literally at risk precisely because they currently and actively feel rejected, unloved and unwelcome, who believe that lying to themselves, their loved ones and G-d is the only way to be loved?
Reading the above supportive comments, I am incredibly proud of my Jewish brethren for standing up for fairness and tikkun olam. This has been a sad day for The Jewish Standard, but it has been a great day for the Jewish community. This is us at our best.
I would like to add my strong disgreement with your apology. Across the range of Jews in the North Jersey area, there is tremendous diversity in observance, life style, and poltiical and social beliefs. If the Orthodox community is offended by publishing announcements of gay marriages, are they not also offended by interfaith marraiges, or events occurring on Shabbos (maybe even requiring driving on Shabbos!), or similar events which are not uncommon in the non-Orthodox community? Will you not publish wedding announcements of interfaith marriages? Will the Orthodox criteria of who is Jewish govern your publication of wedding, birth, bar/bat mtzvah events? Maybe the Orthodox rabbinate has a veto power over such things in Israel, but it should not have it in North Jersey.
Boo! Hiss!
My heartiest best wishes to the young men and their future life together, and may The Jewish Standard rescind its abrupt decision and instead keep its announcements door open. To close it would be a disservice to your readers (all of them, not just one segment) as well as your newspaper’s reputation.
The misguided actions of the editors of the Standard help to fuel the bullying, harassment, and violence that plagues our schools. What were you thinking?
Obviously the Orthodox Jewish Community has forgotten when they used to be discriminated against throughout the world and feel that it is OK to discriminate against another segment of Society. It always amazes me that the Minorities and Religious Organizations that have suffered the most from bias and discrimination throughout history are often the first to discriminate themselves. That is like ‘the pot calling the kettle black’. The Orthodox Jews should be ashamed of themselves for choosing to show their homophobia by denying this couple their right to publically announce their relationship with one another. The Orthodox Jewish community should either be unbiased and anounce ALL pending nuptials or anounce NONE at all. Until these minority segments of Society quit discriminating themselves we can never expect Society as a whole to stop it and that is so draconian and out of touch with reality today in the 21st century.
As a member of the Orthodox community in Teaneck, I decry the anonymous Rabbis who expressed the pain and consternation of the Orthodox community over the announcement of a Same Sex Marriage in the pages of TNJJS.
Rather than pressure the publishers, the Rabbis should have written letters and op-eds and come out into the open with their opinions. The greater Jewish Community has a right to know where people purporting to be among its leaders stand on this obviously divisive issue.
While I cannot imagine a justification within my understanding of Halacha for Same Sex Marriage, I also cannot imagine how a community resource that claims to represent all the members of that community can willingly bow to the religious rulings of only one segment of it.
I am not Jewish and am not a frequent reader of the Jewish Standard but wanted to add my sincere disappointment in this divisive decision. What a fantastic opportunity this publication, and by extension the Jewish community, had to be a shining example of tolerance and compassion to their LGBT members and the rest of the community. You can still be that example, just do the right thing. As an ex-Catholic and current agnostic I couldn’t help but think you are still light years ahead of my old church – couldn’t imagine an announcement like this ever happening there!
Fish wrap. You are either for or against oppression. You do not facilitate it if you are against oppression. And you stand firm against it if you are against it. You can’t have it both ways. When you try to you look ridiculous. You look ridiculous.
As a parent of a Jewish, brilliant, giving gay son I am so proud to call him my child. What have you done to strenthen the Jewish family.? Should we have sat shiva and ripped our shirts ,or embraced our wonderful son and his husband.? We stood uner the chupah with them and rejoiced in their love. What will the orthodox community do when their children come out,and they will? Will they loose their children and deny their existence.? Shame on you and your readers who objected to the annoucement. May they loose what G-d has blessed them with - a child of G-d. Watch Trembling Before G-d and ask Hashem for your forgiveness.
Although it’s unpopular in today’s climate, and may seem insensitive to say, the undistorted truth is that Judaism does not condone homosexual behavior. Since this newspaper purports to be Jewish, the decision not to advertise a celebration of such a union is consistent with Jewish sensibilities, even though its other decisions may not have been. Suddenly becoming consistent in a climate of inconsistency, however, obviously causes upset. This is underscored by the fact that many people either don’t know, or disagree, with G-d’s position on this issue, and therefore choose to attack those that are trying to support .
The challenge for a publication that calls itself Jewish is that so many people today unknowingly warp Judaism to fit their ideas of what’s right and good and still call it Judaism, rather than learning the authentic tradition of what G-d communicated to us. G-d’s standards may not all be agreeable to us or feel good, especially when we have biological drives speaking loudly in opposition to what’s being asked, but that is part of the struggle we are supposed to engage in within this world. We are exhorted to help each other try to achieve the ideal, not to condone or advertise our weaknesses, even when those weaknesses are accepted and celebrated by the popular culture.
That’s where the pain and consternation come in. It’s not pain about the happiness of these individuals, G-d forbid. It’s pain that we’re advertising and condoning a union that G-d expressly doesn’t support. I know it’s next to impossible for most people in today’s highly permissive “progressive” popular culture to really hear that, but it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s so painful to be a homosexual Jew precicely because one IS grappling with two conflicting tides: his/her Jewish soul, and his/her strong proclivities. They are at war—they are not on the same side, despite what some would assert.
Rather revise or reinterpret Judaism to accomodate whatever behavior *we* think is best (like what the progenitors of many movements have done), it’s really the goal to learn from reliable traditional sources about what G-d wants and then lovingly work at achieving it, even if it’s really hard.
The pain and consternation expressed is not about hating people, G-d forbid. For those committed to traditional Judaism, it is very painful to see any expression of publicly-lauded destruction of the *Jewish* standard. It’s even more painful when it strikes at the heart of the Jewish family.
It is heartbreaking that homosexual Jews are in such tortuous pain, and we must do what we can as Jews to comfort and befriend them, while simultaneously not condoning or glorifying that which is contrary to what G-d asks of us.
I don’t know if how this publication approached the issue—within the context of its history—could have been handled better. But I do know that the assertions that the orthodox point of view that was expressed to the editor was un-Jewish, bigotted, small-minded, hate-filled, lacking empathy etc, is tragically off-the-mark.
This is an issue of journalistic ethics. You are choosing not to run an announcement. It’s not an endorsement. Are you going to nix gay obits as well? Are you going to start avoiding running “controversial” stories? Never since my High School paper refused to publish an article on gay students have I seen such ridiculous and spineless behavior. If you wish to be taken seriously, you must reconsider this decision.
In seeking to bring the community together, you have done the exact opposite. In painting all Orthodox Jews with one brush you have only succeeded in further dividing the community. Now, half these comments are combating one form of hatred with another. (Just look. This entire comments section is full of anti-Orthodox venting. There is little purpose in substituting one form of hatred with another. These anonymous “Orthodox leaders” don’t even speak on behalf of the entire Orthodox community!
Mazel tov on your decision to become a newspaper written by bigots, edited by bigots and read only by bigots.
I will join the large group of people sitting shiva for the Jewish Standard that was, the Jewish Standard that is no more and the Jewish Standard that might have been.
Perhaps you will consider having a “subsequent discussion” with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York and representatives from lesbian and gay Jewish community, who would be able to “make you aware” that your decision has caused “pain and consternation” among the Jews whose existence your marginalize and dehumanize, and maybe you will someday apologize to us for “any pain you may have caused.”
Or maybe not, since you recently decided to side with the bigots.
I wish you well. May you live and be well in your your comfortable bigoted security, surrounded by false rabbis who preach hatred and bigotry, and may you never, ever be noticed by this many people again
What, do “traditional/orthodox” people get special consideration over other people?
Its hard to believe that a group of people who not 70 years ago felt the frightful and dispicable lash of bigotry wipe from existence their friends family and ancesters would so easily fall victim to that very same sin against another group. There but fore the grace of *od go I. We shall all pray that members of the gay and lesbian community never find themselves forced into boxcars and ushered into camps—-themselves wearing symbols branding them as different and other. I am not Jewish but I wonder that the Jewish community is not the worlds most stallwort and steadfast enemy of bigotry and racism. And yet in this case at least history repeats itself in a most unlikely and curious manner.
I think you people are misunderstanding- we orthodox Jews are pained by this because according to the Torah it is forbidden to marry gay, hence we obviously think it is disturbing when a sin is publicized, I think everyone would agree that someone who comitted adultrey would not publicize their act. The same goes with gay marriage. This is not a personal attack on gays, It is the act of publicizing such an event which is offensive to the Torah.
Is it really possible that you don’t know any gay Jewish people? Is it so hard to imagine how your decision causes them and all those that embrace them in their communities intense pain and consternation. Aren’t these people worth reaching out to?
Thank you to all those people who have taken time to express their outrage at this decision and their support to gay Jewry.
It is by FAR much more PAINful to feel discrimination than intolerance. So please explain to the public how it’s OK to follow the wishes of the oppressors than the oppressed?
As a traditional, observant, and yes, lesbian Jewish parent, it breaks my heart to see the loudest voice, which happens to be INTOLERANT dominate.
A sad, sad thing.
As the days and soon weeks pass it becomes more obvious that the NJ Jewish Standard will not reverse its current policy of refusing to accept same-sex union announcements. These unions are sanctioned by the State of NJ and most rabbis. There are increasingly more modern orthodox rabbis who have no problem with them.
You are on the wrong side of history.
Once you give into bigots who masquerade their hate under the guise of piety how do you know they won’t demand more concessions to their personal beliefs?
Where does that leave the vast majority of Jews who simply want to read the unvarnished news of our entire community.
This is a very sad day for Jews in New Jersey and the rest of the world.
Well now I know that you care more about your orthodox/conservative/bigoted readers than you do those of us who embrace love and acceptance. Thank a lot for letting me know. I wont be reading your publication again.
While I am not a member of the Jewish community, as a gay man I have always felt more comfortable with Jews than with Christians as I always assumed I would be judged by the Christians. To my many Jewish friends, I love you but I guess I was wrong about not being judged. Remember though, right wing extremists of all religions Muslim, Christian and Jewish really are bad for the world no matter the religion.
You should be ashamed, about everything. Same Sex marriage doesn’t hurt anyone. There aren’t a bunch of pained and hurt homophobes KILLING themselves recently. There hasn;t been a history of homophobes being ATTACKED, HURT, AND SOMETIMES KILLED because of gay people. No, infact its the opposite. I hope you realize now the message you are sending to people who are homophobic. And I hope all the editors who decided to retrack that decision and especially the one who wrote that Editorial pray that no other children KILL themselves because of homophobes, because if they do, its partly their fault, and there is no way they can deny that. They have validated homophobia, and we can’t encourage that.
@Sad in NJ - will God suffer pain and consternation if you include the ‘o’ in his name?
It’s amazing the strength of the gay movement. I hope JS does not bend to these pressures. You are correct in how they acted. The company is seeing serious global cornered to the pressures of these groups. I hope JS does not revert. Congratulations on your courage. Roberto Kedoshim Blog The News of Zion
This is the WRONG decision, out of step with the sensibilities of the majority of modern Jews, the Jews who define the heart of Judaism today, and who will define it in future. Orthodox Jewry has been out of touch with reality since the second world war, a group whose majority supports a destructively regressive right wing political movement in America that is itself a threat to this country’s future as well as the future of the state of Israel. The survival of which has been been placed in direct jeopardy by a dangerously inflexible interpretation of Judaism. They and their extremist counterparts within Christianity and Islam would surely bring down a conflagration that would consume us all if they are allowed to prevail.
I’m disappointed by editorial staffs moral cowardice and willing complicity in countenancing a denial of the basic civil rights to an already repressed segment of the Jewish population. And I submit that it’s only a matter of time before this publication reverses its decision again and joins the rest of us here in the 21st century where the prejudices of previous centuries will no longer be tolerated under the law, contemporary morality or by any one who wishes to continue to be described as civilized. And until such time as you relinquish your complicity with barbarism, I won’t be reading your publication.
Signed
A REAL Jew.
“And then there was no one left to stand “with” me….”
Apparently unbeknown to the publisher of this newspaper and certain respondents from this community, Gay and Lesbian nuptials and commitment ceremonies have been performed and accepted by the Reform (since 1996), Reconstructionist, Renewal, and, most recently, by the Conservative movements in Judaism, not to mention the extensive acknowledgment of Jewish families through legislation and the judicial system in Israel. How is that for Jewish sensibility. To capitulate to power and to deny the existence of these families is to further alienated and diminish the Jewish experience and the vibrant contributions of LGBT Jews and their extended families and friends, to Jewish life. To invisiblize or deny our existence will not make us go away, it only contribute and colludes with our ongoing oppression. We are here! Even in the Orthodox community, and we are not going away just because some wish that we do not exist.
RE: Sad in NJ’s comment above
You write:
“so many people today unknowingly warp Judaism to fit their ideas of what’s right and good and still call it Judaism, rather than learning the authentic tradition of what G-d communicated to us. “
I have a feeling that you yourself warp Judaism as well - the bible clearly says “a blade shall not go upon your face”, a commandment whos pshat clearly instructs us not to shave. Yet you yourself (or your husband, or your husband’s orthodox friends) do shave your face, using a ridiculous excuse that you are using not one blade on your face but rather several blades in the form of an electric razor.
If you think that God did want jews to shave, but didn’t want women to read from the torah - then you don’t realize that actually halacha (including and especially orthodox halacha) *is* affected by the world around it and by what is happening in society. The psak that shaving is allowed was a result of modern society affecting Orthodox halacha. You claim that you are the sole dictator of what “G-d wants” - forgetting that the kippa you wear on your head is there to remind you that there is something between your brain and God, and you will never truly understand what God wants. Any attempt to is met with punishment, as was the fate of those who tried building a tower to reach God in this past week’s parasha.
Orthodoxy indeed thinks that it has a full monopoly on God’s ideas, though historically we see that people claiming exclusivity over God’s word end up crashing down as the world around them decides that they have had enough corrupt holier-than-thou leaders saying that they are more Jewish/Christian/etc than anyone else.
There is no halachic basis for a gay jewish couple to unite in a wedding. There are however various ways in halacha that two people can commit to each other in legally binding ways, and being gay is not prohibited in the Torah, only one specific act is. There are also countless laws in Judaism making it clear that it is important above all to help people who are marginalized (ger/yatom/almana, re’acha kamocha) become part of the Jewish community.
This paper does publish marriages between kohanim and divorcees, and it certainly does not ask whether its engaged couples have any plans of keeping the laws of nidah - two things on which there is a direct issur de’oraitah.
If the Jewish Standard is to be a paper representing the exclusive Orthodox viewpoint, then indeed it shouldn’t publish any of the things I mentioned in this reply, including events on shabbat and treif restaurants. But it is a paper of all Jews. And whether you like it or not, your Orthodox view of Judaism is as equally shaped by history and society’s needs as all other instances of Judaism.
PS by not identifying yourself, just like the rabbis who insisted upon the publishing of the decision above, you show that you are all ashamed of your own view. Orthodoxy should be something that you are proud of - make it that. I did.
The Teaneck rabbis have now issued a statement on their actions. None of them signed it; they prefer to remain anonymous. In it they express their outrage and pain that anyone would condemn them for their acts. Their venom ( their word which they use to describe our reporting) is reserved for the online media that has refused to allow their actions to go unreported.
Meanwhile, gay men commit suicide as they are attacked and, in NYC, have the biggest homophobic hate crime in the history of the city, according to the police, committed against them.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/teaneck-rabbis-whatever-it-is-we-deny-it/
How amazingly disappointing.
Your editorial decision to stop announcing same-sex marriages is misguided and cowardly. You should be ashamed of yourselves. How can you POSSIBLY claim to be representing the Jewish community as a whole?
Wow.
As I shomer shabbat and kashrut Jew, I am saddened and embarrassed that you should use the sensitivities of the orthodox community as an excuse for your biggotry.
When I learned of this retraction letter, all I could think about is what a shanda. As a gay Jewish male, this story saddened me so much to learn that sometimes the squeaky wheel does in fact get fixed. A few outspoken extremists can try to create a theocracy in this paper. No one sat to think about all of the people so happy and proud to see a same sex couple in their local Jewish paper wedding announcements. Religions extremists come in all shapes/forms and religions and the only good that can come of this is to highlight what the extreme ultra orthodox think not only about gays, but about woman and the general conservative and reform population of the United States. Much of our Judaism would come into question if they were in control of Jewish teaching. To think that right wing extreme Jews are any different than right wing extreme Christians and Muslims is gross understatement.
I still have hope to eventually meet someone I want to spend the rest of my life, celebrate my marriage in front of our friends & families and have the wedding announced in my local Jewish newspaper like all of my heterosexual friends have. It will be nice for people to call my grandmother and tell her that they saw my picture in the paper this week and it will be something she very much looks forward to.
Even in the Bible Belt of Georgia, a regular newspaper will announce the engagement of a same sex couple and risk its religious zealots’ comments. Yet, a Jewish publication in NJ where same sex marriage is recognized has decided not to. AMAZING!!! I thought I’d seen it all here in the south. You beat it NJ Jewish Standard… I hope you are proud of yourselves. Shame on you for shaming the Jewish LGBT community and doing what was done to us 60 something years ago. How quickly you forgot…
Shame on you for this decision.
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press” … but, it seems that a few Orthodox extremists can tell the press what to do…
As a member of an orthodox synagogue in Teaneck, i am disappointed that you would consider apologizing for or bowing to pressure reagarding the wedding annocument of the gay couple. How poeple conduct their priivate lives is up to them and simply represents another segment of the Jewish population. If the Jewish Standard is a community paper, then it has a responsibitly to represent all of its constituents, the Jewish communtiy of Bergen County. This extneds to all Jews no matter what their sexual orientation may be. IIf members of the orthodox community have issues with this, then it ts their right not to read the paper or bring it into their homes. I applaud you for placing this article in your paper, and celebrate that 2 Jews elect to embrace a Jewish lifestyle, something that we should not or cannot take for granted.
By making the decision to not post homosexual marriage announcements in the future, The Standard is, in fact, segmenting the Jewish community further by telling an entire portion that they are not to be represented or even a part of the community at all. I am so sad for this misstep.
No matter what the compromise is, when dealing with conservitive, the gay’s are always the one that loose. How else can it be when all they want is to be be treated equal. Very sad day, when you have one group fighting for ciival right compromise means they are less than equal, take a seat at the back of the bus, use a diffrent water cooler it all the same..
To whom it may concern:
Almost fifty years ago my maternal grandparents married. My Grandfather, a practicing Jew, married my grandmother, a practicing Catholic. Very shortly afterwards they made a decision to become practicing Buddhists, one of the main motivations behind this decision being that they did not feel either their communities or their families would accept an interfaith marriage- or the four children that would eventually come from it. Today most, if not all Jewish congregations accept interfaith and interracial marriages- and the loving happy families that these marriages can create. And today, every single one of my grandparent’s children and grandchildren are practicing Buddhists. If you would fight to keep Judaism a living and breathing religion, I would ask you to think of the affect the acceptance demonstrated by even one Jewish newspaper might have on LGBT Jews everywhere.
I am not a rabbi, so I cannot comment on the theological ramifications of marrying or announcing the marriage of LGBT Jews in a newspaper. I am not a Jew of any congregation, so I cannot say that your decision, either the first or the second, have any real ramification on my spiritual or romantic life. But I am a student of history, and I would remind you that when Martin Luther King demanded of America freedom and equality for all regardless of the color of their skin, he quoted from the Old Testament as well as the New and worked hand in hand with many brave and committed Jewish Civil Rights Activists. And I am also a Lesbian, and I hope that when I find the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, that we will be judged not by our sexual orientation but by the content of our character.
And yes perhaps I am unfair to the editors of this newspaper for caving in to the pressure of what (from the contents of the comments above me) appears to be a relatively small handful of individuals, to whom no harm will come if the wedding of Mr. Smolen and Mr. Rosen is announced in your paper. The media is not supposed to engage in fights these days I am told. It’s supposed to be fair and balanced- to never espouse a cause or fight for justice.
But the LGBT Jews of America will not stop marrying or stop fighting for the right to marry and enjoy full civil rights, if the editor’s of this newspaper refuse to offer them support- and neither will non-Jewish LGBT Americans. And strangely enough this statement from the Jewish Standard gives me a great deal of hope- because of the overwhelming flood of intelligent, articulate individuals; both straight and queer, both Jewish and gentile, who took the time to speak to you- and remind you that Newspaper editors were once brave enough to stand up to bigotry and fear.
Thank you for your time
I can’t decide if you’re cowards or sell-outs. Either way, it’s not a good color on you.
Orthodox Jews want to achieve hegemony over all of us normal Jews. Most religions have their lunatic fringes-its only our tribe which allows the inmates to runt he asylum.
The answer is to stop funding and orthodox institution directly or through the federation. I have already stopped contributing to our federation and make contributions directly to the agencies that I like-I’m not going to contribute to educate another generation of bronze age homophones.
This is possibly the gravest mis-step in the history of your publication. Unless you’re comfortable losing the entire under-40 crowd, nationally, I urge you to reconsider.
