I do not typically sign public rabbinic statements. I rarely agree with every word of a collective letter, and signing one can shift the focus from the work itself to defending the decision to sign. But a recent letter had me questioning my commitment.
The letter, signed by nearly 100 Orthodox rabbis so far, declares that “conversion therapy” — counseling meant to change sexual orientation from gay to straight — is outside the bounds of Jewish law, or halacha.
I felt drawn to sign by the letter’s considerable significance. And though I declined to add my name, the substance of the letter stayed with me. For decades, gay Jews were told explicitly and implicitly that their identities were problems to be solved. Conversion therapy was sometimes tolerated, even framed as a religious response.
Increasingly, such therapy has been discredited by medical and mental health professionals. There is near-universal consensus, medical, psychological, and increasingly religious, that conversion therapy is harmful. That so many Orthodox rabbis have now stated that such practices fall outside the bounds of Jewish law marks an important moment of reckoning. The law is now one of the last places still struggling to catch up.
A recent and devastating development in U.S. law makes the letter even more significant. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy for minors, ruling that such practices are protected speech. In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court extended constitutional protection to a practice widely condemned as harmful.
This ruling does not only affect conversion therapy’s standing in dozens of states. It reshapes the boundary between free speech and professional responsibility, with real consequences for vulnerable people and for the ability of states to regulate harm. Indeed, there is broad, near-consensus opposition to conversion therapy across major medical, mental health, and many religious organizations.
The ruling is striking because it suggests that American law and Jewish law are moving in different directions.
The painful divergence brings me back to my years at York University in Toronto in the early 1990s, when even acknowledging the dignity of gay Jewish students felt controversial.
I did not go to York intending to become an advocate. I arrived as an Orthodox Jewish woman trying to find my footing on a sprawling, often unwelcoming campus. I came carrying Torah and feminism, conviction and curiosity, but not yet a language for leadership.
That language began to take shape through an unlikely friendship.
Mitch Raphael and I came from very different worlds. He was deeply involved in queer campus activism; I was visibly Orthodox and immersed in Jewish communal life. What might have remained disagreement became respect, then trust. We both believed Jewish life on campus could be more expansive, more humane, and more honest.
At the time, many gay Jewish students felt they had to choose between their Jewish and sexual identities. With no specifically Jewish framework of support, they turned to general campus LGB groups spaces that, tellingly, were filled with Jewish students.
Within Jewish campus life, there was little language of inclusion and few structures of support. Silence prevailed.
When students sought recognition through the Jewish Student Federation, I became the sole Orthodox voice publicly supporting them. Together, we built programming that took both Jewish tradition and human dignity seriously; conversations that engaged halacha while affirming belonging.
We also met with Orthodox rabbis across Toronto. As a student, and the only Orthodox woman in the room, I witnessed a wide range of responses, from compassion to resistance. Even the premise that gay Jews deserved communal recognition was, for some, difficult to accept.
The experience came at a personal cost. I lost relationships and faced criticism. But I also saw what it meant for students to feel, perhaps for the first time, that they could belong without apology. I never doubted that it was right.
Because I saw the students. I saw the relief in their faces when they realized they did not have to hide. I saw what it meant for them to be able to sit in a room and say, “I am gay and I am Jewish and I belong here.” I saw how many had been taught that God rejected them, that their community had no place for them, that they would have to choose between faith and selfhood. Forcing someone to change does not bring them closer to faith. It drives them away, and that loss diminishes us all.
That is why this new rabbinic statement matters: It reflects a shift toward acknowledging harm and affirming dignity. But it is only the beginning.
It does not undo past damage. It does not ensure that every Jewish space will become safe and welcoming. And it does not change the legal landscape now shaped by the Supreme Court, one that may expand access to these practices even as they are increasingly rejected by medical and religious authorities alike.
This recent ruling and this rabbinic statement together highlight a fundamental tension between what the law permits and what communities choose to uphold.
I think back to those students at York, searching for a place to exist without apology.
Today, students, families, and communities in states across the country may face renewed pressure, fewer protections, and greater access to practices that have long been shown to cause harm. The question before us is no longer theoretical. The question was never only what the law would allow. It was, and remains, what kind of community we choose to be.
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