Posted on 01/26/2005 3:27:27 PM PST by ambrose
Orthodox lesbian speaks to students at U of T
By SHERI SHEFA CJN Intern
As if the life of an Orthodox Jewish woman in North America isn’t complicated enough, “Chani” is also being torn between being true to herself and the religion she honours.
“Chani” – who chose not to reveal her real name – spoke to a gathering last week at the at the University of Toronto’s Wolfond Centre for Jewish Campus Life about what it’s like to live as an Orthodox lesbian Jew.
The lecture titled “Collision of Worlds and their Rebuilding: On Being an Orthodox Lesbian Jew,” organized by Hillel of Greater Toronto’s education committee, and Kulanu, the campus gay Jewish organization, covered her journey into accepting herself as both a lesbian and a frum Jew.
“In the beginning of this journey of coming out to myself and realizing who I was, I don’t think I questioned my Jewishness or who I was as a Jew. I still knew that I wanted to be observant,” Chani said.
Growing up in a very sheltered community in New York City, without television or even a radio, she didn’t know what the word lesbian meant.
“I didn’t realize that I was different from other people. I just assumed that most girls were attracted to other girls and you get married to guys,” she said.
“There were some signs along the way,” she joked. “When most of my classmates were babysitting, I was working in a hardware store.”
By the time she was 17, she did what all the girls in her class did.
She got married, and by 21 she had three kids.
She became overwhelmed with the stress involved in raising children, so her husband, who “was becoming more modern,” decided it might be a good idea for them to get a television set.
After watching a few shows, she stumbled across the situation comedy, Ellen, which starred Ellen DeGeneres, who played a lesbian on the show.
“I’m watching this episode and I hear or see the word lesbian and everyone [the studio audience] was laughing, so I thought, ‘What does this word mean?’ And I looked it up in the dictionary,” she said.
“Finding out that I was a lesbian was a relief. It was like, Oh! Now I get it! All of a sudden all those little things make sense!”
Once she had her third child, she felt the relationship she had with her husband had become unreconcilable.
After going into therapy, to try to mend a marriage that was doomed for reasons other than her sexuality, she eventually left and took her children with her.
Leaving her husband was enough to keep her parents from speaking to her ever again – and they don’t even know she’s gay.
Despite being torn between a religion that doesn’t accept her and a lifestyle that doesn’t understand her connection to God, Chani has made peace with the fact that it is possible to be Orthodox and gay.
“When people ask me ‘Why are you a lesbian? Why are you gay? Why do you feel you need to be different?’ It is something you can’t explain, it’s something innate, something inside of us. The attraction isn’t something you decide,” she said.
In the same way that Chani couldn’t ignore her natural attraction to women, she simply could not abandon her faith in God.
“I knew that I would be throwing away a big part of who I was and I didn’t want to do that,” she said. “I can’t choose not to be frum, I can’t choose not to [have] a connection with God.”
While she said she still understands that the Orthodox community and the Torah frown upon homosexual acts, there is nothing in the text that says anything about being homosexual.
“Maybe it is easier for me because I’m a woman, and in the Jewish text, the idea of lesbian or gay is not really discussed. The actual wording has to do with a guy lying with a guy.”
(The actual passage in Leviticus states: “A man shall not lie with another man as he would lie with a woman, it is an abomination.”)
Chani said she dates Jewish women – observant and non-observant – and feels it doesn’t make her any less Jewish.
She also said she has come to realize that no Jew is perfect or can live to the letter of the law in every way. That’s why she chooses not to judge individuals the way others have judged her.
“I’m going to stop judging Judaism by the Jews… because they are just people. People make mistakes, people mess up everything. If I judged Judaism by the Jews, I wouldn’t be a Jew. Let alone Orthodox or observant or any of that,” she said.
Chani said she is not out to make anyone believe something they don’t want to believe, nor is she looking for approval.
“For me I try to believe that God loves me for who I am regardless of what I do,” she said. “I love who I am and I love every part of what makes me be the person I am, and my sexuality is part of that,”
So, what’s next for Chani?
She plans to continue taking night courses over the years to get an undergraduate degree, and she’s also hoping to do rabbinical studies. She hopes one day that Orthodox rules will be modified so that she can become a rabbi.
Give me a glass of milk and an Egg McMuffin.
and hold the muffin.
So, if she watches The Godfather on TV, will she have a sudden craving for cannoli?
Only if it refers to the practice, rather than the orientation.
I dunno so much about the oxy part, but moron sure fits.
Sure...just like John Kerry has made peace with the "fact" that it's possible to be Catholic and pro-abortion.
Just because you identify with a tv personality doesn't make you gay.
Well I watched a John Wayne movie last night and I'll never be the same again.
By the time she was 17, she did what all the girls in her class did.
She got married, and by 21 she had three kids.
What "all the girls" in her class did?!?
:-/
Aint that the truth. Arabs are gayer than gay.
Wouldn't that make her an Orthodyke?
ROFLMAO!
"Becomes a lesbian after watching Ellen."
I know how this works. I became a heterosexual after reading Playboy.
Sounds like an article straight out of The Onion.
I won't watch ellen, I'm caponophobic.
No. She doesn't "honor her religion." If she did she would renounce her "perversion" as spelled out in the Torah.
She might claim to be a reform Jew (VERY reform) but not orthodox.
It's like claiming "I'm a devaout Catholic but I don't hold with all this resurrection stuff, and don't start with the transubstantiation..."
Is it coincidence that the pseudonym "Chani" is from the druggy Dune, heavily involved with Arab myth and imagry?
Television is a very powerful medium. Kramer started having seizures after hearing Mary Hart's voice coming from a television.
If it were U of Texas she'd have to stand in line. . . . .
This is either the most laughable put-on I've read recently, or this woman wins the "Airhead of the Century" award.
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