The comptroller of New York City, Brad Lander, has written a letter to Yeshiva University’s president, Rabbi Ari Berman, regarding the university’s LGBTQ+ Pride Alliance organization suing the school.
In his letter, Lander urges the university to officially recognize the YU Pride Student Alliance, citing allegations of discrimination and violations of New York City’s Human Rights Law.
“As the City’s chief accountability officer, I have been monitoring the situation surrounding your refusal to officially recognize the YU Pride Student Alliance, including the appellate court’s recent affirmance of the lower court’s denial of Yeshiva’s motion to dismiss. Your students are alleging that your current practices are discriminatory and in violation of New York City’s Human Rights Law,” Lander, who is Jewish, wrote.
“I must urge your institution to change course and offer a secure environment for your LGBTQ+ students and staff to create a supportive space to rightfully express their full selves,” he said.
He noted that YU has received $8.8 million in public funding since 2010 and that its actions may put future funding and associated services at risk. Yeshiva University receives public funding and was chartered as a secular organization, making it subject to the New York City Human Rights Law, despite being largely viewed as a religious school.
The university argued that the court’s interference in its choice not to recognize the pride club is a violation of religious liberty, but a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that the university must recognize it, and that banning it from campus would be considered discrimination and a violation of the law.
At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, YU attempted to compromise with the YU Pride Alliance by creating a new club, “Kol Yisroel Areivim”, which claims to represent LGBTQ+ students “under traditional Orthodox auspices.”
However, the YU Pride Alliance has dismissed the new club as a “stunt.”
WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEO OF HAGAON HARAV GIFTER TALKING ABOUT THE TOEIVA IN YU 1988
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17 Responses
The actual letter demands that LGBT rights are “celebrated” by the yeshiva.
Celebrated.
That’s the tell that it’s a bad faith, deliberately antagonistic political maneuver.
Vegam erav rav oloh etom
Time to give up public funding and stick with Judaism!
They opted for half-baked compromise that violates the spirit of both the Torah and the “community” they are trying to placate.
No one was happy.
Lukewarm equivocation never works.
In the words of Eliyahu :
עד מתי אתם פסחים על שני הסעיפים ???
Do you have a red line you won’t cross halfway?
Can you take the painful steps needed to salvage some integrity?
Or will you merely adhere stubbornly to your finely-worded empty half-truth that will continue to bankrupt, sadly, your future generations?
And this is the candidate all the Yidin supported.
Thanks for calling it that, it’s time we are unapologetic with our language.
They got to make dorms and special bathrooms for them because any man can take anti-androgens hormone guck be a man and look like a women and then your body will go back to how it was before you started taking the medication
It’s better then taking drugs if people did not know me maybe the government would pay for these pills and yeshiva university got some good looking girls to show the science class it is crazy
What mikva do they go to it is crazy
Ignoring religious freedom is not discriminatory?!
What difference does it make what YU does now? They’re all vaxed out now. Sort of like what if Lot never left Sodom but instead remained there to argue his case against the Sodomites until the whole place got destroyed.
They should follow the lead of the Netziv and close the place down, rather than giving in to the outrageous demands of the government
@Schmendrick
Your obsession with the vaccine is unhealthy. To a regular commenter, you sound crazy when you post about the vaccine on articles that have nothing to do with it.
With this organization shown such disdain & revulsion to Frum people entering their premises, being subjected to being frisked head to toe by 1 of their שחורים guards, and having to empty all their pockets like low life bums, I really have so absolute no sympathy for YU & their current woes. They can wallow in their own dirt, and eat crow.
Marxist, if I had to guess, you work for a government agency, and that is why you’re discouraging me from publicizing against the vax. There is no doubt in my mind hundreds of students at YU already will suffer lifelong health complications from their participation in the genetic experiment and probably will die prematurely from it. If you want to shut me up, it makes you an accessory to the whole thing, basically you’re aiding rodfim. Good luck with that. I sincerely hope you vaxed out.
Why do I feel like none of the commenters on here ever spoke to someone who approves of YU, let alone stepped foot on their campus (as 147 says)? Because I have, and the level of ignorance about the institution is appalling.
And before anyone compares entering YU to entering a foreign house of worship, think twice re: what you know about YU.
Whatever issues you have with YU you have to be blind not to realize that Lander’s motive is to fight people’s right to practice religion. He is fighting with YU over their efforts to keep Torah and Mitzvahs. Not to break it ch’v. It’s therefore mind boggling to see all these people who think they are so frum taking Lander’s side.
To respond to Smerel’s point:
I am certainly not taking Lander’s side. And I shudder to think of other attacks that could be coming against Yeshiva. It’s clear that they are attacking YU because it represents Orthodoxy , that scares me. I am not gleeful, I am saddened and frightened.
But I am frankly sickened by YU. The issue I have is with YU’s attempt to have their cake and eat it too. They want credit for their strong moral stance. Because they filed a lawsuit. Big deal.
When they lost the lawsuit , they didn’t take strong action. They didn’t make hard choices. There was no leadership. They tried to equivocate, to come up with half-baked compromises and silly statements about how they respect both the Toeva community and the Torah. Their arguments only impress themselves.
. YU wishes to adhere firmly to the SPIRIT of todays woke morality allthewhile trying to adhere to the technical letter of the law of the Torah. It doesn’t work . It doesn’t make anyone happy. Most importantly – It doesn’t create future generations of ehrlicher Yiddin.
If modern orthodoxy is to have any real future they need to change direction. And I am afraid that they won’t…