Letters:
JONAH


JONAH not a real or realistic 'choice' for homosexuals or those who marry them

I just read the article Homosexuality: JONAH offers choice by Seth Mandel.

I cannot give my name because it would cause embarrassment to my family, but I was 21 years old when I discovered the man I married was struggling with his homosexuality. It was heartbreaking to discover that because the frum community has still found no realistic way to deal with homosexuals that women like me get stuck in these dead-end marriages.

Think about it! Would you like your daughter to marry one of these "converted" homosexuals? All that reparative therapies can offer for men who really are dedicated to change their sexual orientation is a pitiful success rate of 25 percent. And "successful" means these men will still look at men, but somehow stay married and somewhat content.This is not fair to the women married to these men! They deserve fully engaged husbands! While I was married, I met many homosexual frum men who were mensches and never married. They were abstinent. Such good men. You can find them in every shul. They serve as gabbis and chazzonim.

Because of my experience, I now understand their predicament better and if I could I would protect all women from the trauma I went through, and that's why I'm writing this letter. Organizations like JONAH and NARTH just make us all feel that there is some sort of solution for male homosexuality. I can tell you from personal experience: They are no solution!

After 10 difficult years, I gave up. My husband tried extremely hard, and I wasted many years, waiting for him to change. It took years for me to figure out that it wasn't my fault, that it wasn't my looks or my personality that caused my husband to desire men. Lots of money and years of therapy later, he is still the same man, and although a nice man, he's torn apart by being homosexual in a world that won't accept him.

We have to stop pretending that these organizations offer a choice if only for the sake of all the young, innocent women who end up in these painful and doomed relationships!

Tovah

Teaneck

Appropriate "Alternative approaches" to homosexuality

I am appalled by the insensitivity of this newspaper in publishing "Homosexuality: JONAH Offers Choice".

This article was incredibly offensive, biased and unscientific. Although the JONAH organization claims to offer "new alternatives to homosexuality," the underlying belief expressed in this article is that gay Jews are still unacceptable and need to be persuaded to "return" to "normality".

By including JONAH's logo in large print on the front page, it looks as though your newspaper is promoting this group and their views. To add insult to injury, the use of the Magen David as the frame of their logo implies that the majority of Jews endorse their beliefs.

Staying in the "closet" is not a "new alternative for gay people;" it's quite ancient. Here are my "alternative approaches" to homosexuality:

1. Let's encourage inclusiveness and acceptance within the Jewish community and society in general and;

2. Show respect for gays as they are, instead of asking them to live a lie.

As Jews we do not appreciate when members of other religions try to convert us, so we should not try to change anyone's natural sexual orientation.

I hope this newspaper will avoid putting an unbalanced, opinionated article like this one in the "news" section again if you do not wish to alienate many of your readers.

Laurie Fechter

Edison

Change is possible for homosexuals

I recently read the well-written article by Seth Mandel, Homosexuality: JONAH Offers Choice.

I appreciate that your publication printed such an article. As you know, an organization like the one Arthur Goldberg heads up, is not very politically correct. Our culture has so accepted homosexuality as just another way to live life.

I am the chairman of an organization within the Presbyterian church (www.oneby1.org). Its goal is to help men and women deal with their sexual confusion, particularly homosexuality. We have seen many across America leave homosexuality. Change is very possible.

And so, thanks again for printing an article on homosexuality that highlights the possibility for change. People like Arthur Goldberg need to be commended for their caring and courageous work.

It is hard to swim against a culture that believes that gay and lesbian people cannot change.

Dr. Jeff Winter

Martha's Vineyard

JONAH provides hope, in the form of a choice for Jews coming out of their closets

I read Seth Mandel's balanced and dignified description of the JONAH organization and I now have a clear understanding of Mr. Goldberg and Ms. Silidor-Berk's mission and how it is candidly tackling the issue of alternative lifestyles in the Jewish community.

As Jerry Seinfeld repeatedly said in his sitcom "not that there is anything wrong with it," but there is something very right going on here under the leadership of Goldberg and Silidor-Berk.

It was interesting to note that JONAH is not in the business of making a blunt value judgment. Jonah is simply offering a choice and an alternative pathway for men and women of all ages and marital status. The organization obviously neither condones nor chastises homosexuals but simply provides them a choice, if they so desire.

This is a topic that the general Jewish community does not like to talk about and would prefer to sweep under the rug. Arthur Goldberg, in a sense, is providing a solution by offering Jewish men and women an opportunity to meet in a confidential and empathetic setting and to explore their attraction for same sex partners.

There are probably a great number of our people who are feeling alone and scared with this issue that effects not only their professional but also their personal lives. This article gives the Jewish community an opportunity to dialogue about the issue of homosexuality rather than running away from it or simply banishing it to whispers among closest confidants.

I say kol-ha-kovod to Arthur Goldberg; a man who in the 1970s, when the majority of our balabatim (leaders) ignored or condoned the plight of soviet Jewry, took the bull by the horns and formed an organization entitled CASE - Committee for the Absorption of Soviet Émigrés. He did not just talk the talk, but together with his wife Jane, they walked the walk and were personally responsible for the successful resettlement of hundreds of Jewish émigré families.

Today, he is a pioneer with the work being done at JONAH. For those who have reacted emotionally or in a negative manner to the article about Jonah, I strongly suggest they recognize this organization's potential to provide hope, in the form of a choice, to Jews who want to come out of the Jewish closet. No one is forcing them to and, certainly, no one is putting them down in any way whatsoever.

I look forward to Mr. Goldberg's book on the subject and I hope Eliyahu Publications will review it. I am certain it will be a must read for every Jewish Family Service counselor throughout North America.

Alan J. Nydick

Bayonne

Change is possible through JONAH

I read your article online on the ex-gay issue.

I think it is a clear and concise writing: The psychologist interviewed does not say it is better for all gays to "convert" (as some fundamentalists state), but simply mentions that some of us do transition (maybe simply by aging).

I am one of those who did "fight" for the gay cause and was astonished to experience that, after some years, I developed an interest in raising a family and it was not impossible to become a father and even have a fairly acceptable married life (with some of the bumps it entails, but always recovering).

I think it is logical that, as Freud has shown, fathering deficit (in childhood) will lead to an extreme craving of fathering and manly closeness which may be sexualized - but as it may become a real co-dependence or sex-fantasy addiction we must accept the possibility of therapy.

Of course I do understand the demonization on the part of pro-gay organizations...it is similar to other political propaganda issues when the left accuses the right of being Fundamentalist (or "Nazi"), since this really does happen. On the other hand, I think if the pro gay people would support therapy (so that "traumatic gays" – the fatherless ones - would really change, and only "genetic" ones would stay, those who claim they are gays, in spite of having a wonderful upbringing and no special trauma), many Nazi-friends, who are repressed unconscious homos most of the times, would simply go to therapy, and the extremist problem would diminish.

Uri George Kozma Klein

Busdapesht

Homosexuals have a right to remain in the closet, change their orientation

I commend your courage.

To dare to offer hope to desperate men and women who would do anything to find relief from homosexuality is the greatest sin in some communities these days. I personally know of people Arthur and Elaine saved from anguish nobody can imagine.

I have spent decades dealing with child molesters, broken families, etc. I went to a meeting of the County Legislature about the problems of women. But there was no meeting.

Instead, a group of gay activists hijacked the meeting. They insisted on voicing their demands that New York State allow them to have unprotected and unregulated sex even if they had AIDS. I got up and said, "If resisting the right to infect and kill others is bigotry, than I am a bigot."

The gays glared at me with hate. I asked them why they stared at me that way. The gay said because of the quilt for gays who died of AIDS. I said, "If you would listen to me and not infect people when you have AIDS, they would not have died."

Have some pity on people. Just because they are homosexual doesn't mean that we let them die needlessly.

Let those who attacked Arthur go to the Academy Awards and see actors refuse to accept awards because the Gay Lobby is there to shout at them in public, "Come out of the closet."

Homosexuals have the right to remain in the closet, and the right to change their orientation.

For shame that we need courage to recognize this.

Rabbi David Eidensohn

Monsey, NY

Tustin, Calif.

Congratulations on your article of Nov. 9 on JONAH.

It's about time that this was brought to the attention of the Jewish people.

Bravo to Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Berk on their enlightening and most important work.

Shari Coen

JONAH, like America, offers freedom and choice

Thanks so much for publishing Seth Mandel's excellent article about JONAH.

We read so little about alternative ways of viewing homosexuality since the pseudo-scientific conclusion that people are "born gay" was accepted as fact. The work that Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Silodor Berk are doing with JONAH is monumentally important, and it has offered hope to so many people who felt there was nowhere to turn.

They not only offer support to people who wish to change their lifestyle, but also to parents and other family members who have been severely impacted by their loved ones behavior. JONAH, along with many brave therapists like Richard Cohen and Joseph Nicalosi, and cultural activists like Regina Griggs of PFOX, are struggling mightily against the general trend in this country and others.

America is a land of freedom and choice, and JONAH offers both.

Thank you again for letting JONAH's voice be heard, and please continue to air viewpoints that may not be "politically correct" or popular, especially those that question dubious scientific "facts."

Harrin Meltzer

Finding path back to God through JONAH

I commend and congratulate you for allowing this thought provoking and important message to reach your larger community.

The work that JONAH is doing is vital in helping people in pain find a way back to peace.

We must all get involved and find the courage to participate in the path back to God for the human family.

Once again, thank you,

Maxine Andrade

JONAH journeyer says change is possible

Regarding your Nov. 9 article about JONAH, I am a client of Arthur Goldberg and JONAH.

The tireless work that they do has helped me immensely in dealing with my SSA, and to one day develop a heterosexual lifestyle. Take it from one who has "been there, done that." CHANGE IS POSSIBLE!!

In my short two month affiliation with JONAH, I am already seeing significant change in my personal life.Aside from helping men with their SSA, JONAH is also of great assistance in developing a man's positive self image, courage, power, and living happily.

Regarding those who think that change is not possible, may I refer them to a powerful letter by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky, of the Philadelphia Yeshiva. (This letter may be accessed at jonahweb.org inthe Rabbinical commentary section.) There he describes how anything that the Torah prohibits, man has the power to withhold from and overcome.

Thus, if homosexuality is prohibited by the Torah, man certainly has the power to change and overcome it. G-d does not give anyone a challenge that he is unable to overcome. So to say that there is a gay gene, is completely ludicrous because if so, why would the Torah prohibit homosexuality?!

May they also note that nowhere in the Torah does it say, "don't be gay." Rather, it says not to engage in sexual activities with another man. Quite clearly do we see that the Torah does NOT classify or acknowledge any human being as a gay.

Simply put, change is possible for those who want to change, and there are many Jewish men out there who can attest to that, myself being one.

A "journeyer" affiliated with JONAH.