Group Rallies for Gay Rights at JTS

About 40 demonstrators stood silent, with their mouths taped shut, outside of the main entrance of the Jewish Theological Seminary Tuesday afternoon in support of a change to Conservative Jewish law that would allow for gays and lesbians to become ordained rabbis.

Holding signs with demands such as "Let gay voices be heard" and "Ordination regardless of orientation," the demonstrators expressed their position in anticipation of a vote in early December by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. This body, responsible for halacha-or Jewish law-for the Conservative movement, will decide whether to accept openly gay or lesbian people into the rabbinate.

JTS currently denies homosexuals admission to its rabbinical and cantorial schools, though it is expected to change that policy if the committee lifts its ban.

"As a member of the JTS community, it concerns me a great deal that a school that I'm at has a discriminatory policy," said Ira Stup, GS/JTS '09 and the head of JTS Students for Change, the undergraduate group that organized Tuesday's protest.

Stup and other demonstrators stressed that they were protesting not the seminary but a law that negatively affects the culture of JTS and Conservative Judaism within a modern context.

He said that "a large amount" of JTS' undergraduate population support inclusion of homosexuals at the seminary, citing anecdotal evidence.

"A lot of people came out to show their support and their ideas of inclusion," said demonstrator Sarit Horwitz, GS/JTS '09. "We got a lot of thumbs up, a lot of honks. We got a lot of people who are appreciative of our cause."

Throughout the protest, people who were walking in and out of the seminary were met by the silent crowd, which handed out literature expressing a "deep desire to see change in the Seminary policies and attitudes."

"The undergraduate community is with the gay would-be rabbis who would like to be here," said Nate Richman, GS/JTS '09.

JTS officials said that the seminary will not comment on the issue of gay ordination until the committee makes its decision. Before taking over as JTS chancellor this year, Arnold Eisen told the New York Times on April 11 that, "I'd like it possible for gay and lesbian students to be ordained."

The question of who is allowed to be ordained has been ongoing for decades. In 1983, JTS opened the doors to its rabbinical school to women, leading some to break away from the Conservative movement. In 1992, it was declared that Jewish law bars both same-sex marriage and openly gay people from attending rabbinical and cantorial schools. The lawmaking body took up both of those issues again three years ago, and the debate is expected to come to a head in December's vote.