Once Upon a Gay: A Jewish Journey Through the Ex-Gay Movement

By Jason Littman

Many people are surprised when I tell them I voluntarily entered reparative therapy at the age of 21 without pressure from family or religious leaders. I usually respond by telling them that during that time in my life, it wasn't a choice between coming out and conversion therapy; rather, it was a choice between conversion therapy and not wanting to live anymore.

After completing yeshiva high school and attending three years of black-hat-style yeshiva in Israel and Brooklyn, I returned to my parents' home knowing I had feelings for other men. So I did what any other religious Jewish boy in his early 20s might do: I called the local shadchan (matchmaker) to let her know I was finally ready to get married. After a year of interviewing young, unknowing women in their late teens in hotel lounges around Manhattan, I realized that perhaps I needed to work on getting rid of these attractions I had toward other men.

I sought the counsel of rabbis in Israel and Brooklyn (I would only trust the advice of bridge-and-tunnel rabbis, I told myself). As the first rabbi I had spoken to at the age of 18 told me, my feelings toward men were "just a phase," but when he still insisted that when I called him back at the age of 20, I decided to speak to further rabbis. An orthodox rabbi in Queens informed me that I just needed a sexual outlet for my feelings and that as soon as I'd found the "right" woman to marry, I'd be cured! Still not convinced, I spoke to another rabbi in Brooklyn, and after some deep thought, he mentioned that "everyone has skeletons in their closets, not just you." He further recommended that I not disclose anything to the girls I was dating, as I was forbidden to say loshon hora (defamation/gossip) about myself. I tried telling him that it wasn't actual skeletons that were in my closet but me that was in the closet. I decided to ask one more rabbi, this one in Staten Island. After a long hour of going through all the possibilities of what one might do and what other rabbis have suggested, the rabbi flatly informed me: "I don't know."

"Well, Rabbi," I said, with my eyes lit up as if I finally had the answer I'd been looking for, "that's the best answer any rabbi has ever given me."

So, without finding the answer to a problem I thought needed to be solved, and with no satisfactory sage among the rabbis of New York City, I turned to the modern-day avenue for finding an answer to a halachic (Jewish law) issue that rabbis can't answer: Google.

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