If you are in New York City and struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. You can also dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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Yeshiva University is left in mourning after a beloved gay alum dies by suicide
(New York Jewish Week) — Before eulogizing their friend on Thursday night, Beth Weiss draped a rainbow flag with a Jewish star over the podium.
It was a potent symbol of the twin identities that Weiss and others who knew Herschel Siegel said he had struggled to reconcile, particularly as a student and 2021 graduate of Yeshiva University. Siegel died by suicide Friday in Atlanta, where he grew up and had been living.
Weiss said during the eulogy they recalled having “a conversation with a gay friend about what it felt like to be queer in the Orthodox world” for the first time with Siegel, a classmate at Y.U., the Modern Orthodox flagship in uptown Manhattan.
“I can’t tell you how invaluable conversations and connections like that are,” Weiss said. “We talked about our dreams for the future, but also the reality of how our future might look because of our queerness.”
Weiss’ comments, delivered at a memorial held on the Y.U. campus and organized by some of Siegel’s friends from college, reflect a narrative solidifying around Siegel’s death. Many believe — based on their conversations with Siegel, his social media posts and their own experiences — that Siegel had considered that there may have been no place for him as a gay man in the Orthodox community where he grew up and attended college.
Even as some in Siegel’s community have downplayed the focus on his sexuality following his death, friends say his suicide should be a wakeup call at a time when Yeshiva University is deeply divided over whether and how to include LGBTQ students. In recent years, the school has fought not to have to recognize an LGBTQ student group, even petitioning the Supreme Court for relief. A trans woman was also told she could no longer pray in a synagogue affiliated with the school.
Weiss told the New York Jewish Week that there are many “Orthodox queer people who are possibly suffering, who feel like they are alone, and who feel like they don’t have a future,” adding, “I know that Herschel felt that way at points in his life because he told me.”
Experts caution that it is a mistake to attribute suicides to single causes. Still, there is no question that LGBTQ youth are at increased risk, particularly when they are not accepted in their communities. According to a 2023 survey by the Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community, 41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.
Siegel made his struggle transparent. In an Instagram post from March that has circulated widely after his death, he wrote about how the word “abomination” in a Torah portion brought up trauma for him as a gay man within the Orthodox community.
“According to that trauma, my very EXISTENCE as a gay, Jewish, Male was an abomination,” Siegal wrote. “And even decades later, that fear-based thought pattern erupted into my consciousness, at the most unexpected of times.”
He then asked, “Do we ever REALLY heal from the deeply traumatic memories within us? Or is it rather a Journey, like many other emotions, and then we come to realize that one day we are at ease while riding ‘the trauma-coaster’?”
Siegel ended the post on a positive note, sharing gratitude for anyone who “has ever experienced a profoundly traumatizing event within your lives. … The fact that we made it this far is something to be proud of in and of itself!”
He died a month later, on the eve of the Shabbat when the weekly Torah portion includes the Jewish legal prohibition on homosexual intercourse, calling it an “abomination.”
“I think about the bravery, the heroism, the strength of this kid,” said Mordechai Levovitz, a therapist and the clinical director of Jewish Queer Youth, an organization that seeks to support and empower Jewish LGBTQ teens, with a focus on the Orthodox community. “I think any person at all willing to endure a community in a religion that is very cruel to him — and yet sees the value because there is also still value — is someone that I think we can look up to, and that we can learn from, and that we can be inspired by.”
He added, “But also, we can admit and witness and bear the fact that it is because of the community that we created that this kid could not find a future for himself and thought that it would perhaps be better off if he was not here, or if he did not exist.”
Not everyone who has commented on Siegel’s death is connecting it with his sexuality. Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman of Beth Jacob Atlanta, Siegel’s synagogue, wrote an email to the congregation saying that “our thoughts and tefillos [prayers] go out to the Siegel family, whose agony can never be fully fathomed, and who will be embraced and supported by us, their community.” Siegel is survived by his parents and five siblings.
Feldman presided over a funeral on Sunday that people who were present said was attended by about 200 people, with more than 450 tuning in on Zoom. Levovitz said that at the funeral, the rabbi referred to Siegel as being “mentally ill.” Mental illness is considered the strongest predictor of suicide.
Feldman told the New York Jewish Week over the phone that “even by reducing this story to a one-dimensional story of a guy who was gay, who committed suicide, we’re actually doing a disservice to gay people.” He also said Siegel’s family is distressed by the narrative, which they believe is untrue.
“The storyline of this particular case is an openly gay person who had wonderful relationships with the entire Orthodox community, including haredi Orthodox leaders,” Feldman said. “And now we’re going take this guy after his death, during his shiva while his family is grieving, and start talking about [how] gays are marginalized and whether this drove him to suicide, when this is the one case where an Orthodox community embraced a gay person with love and with no exceptions.”
But he acknowledged that there is “a big difference between pressures from the Jewish community and pressures from Jewish tradition,” which under Orthodox interpretations does not permit homosexuality.
“If he ever felt pressure, it was relieved by the love that he received in the community, but the pressure may have been there because Jewish tradition is inconsistent with gay activity,” Feldman said.
A source in the Atlanta community who said he had known Siegel since Siegel was a child said Siegel’s death comes on the heels of another suicide in the Atlanta Orthodox community, also of a young person who identified as a member of the LGBTQ community.
“There is a cloud of sadness. People just feel confused and lost. This is the second time in six months,” the source said. “It’s just resonating very hard for people. Young people taking their lives, it’s not supposed to be something that is normal and is regularly happening.”
Hundreds of people attended the funeral for Herschel Siegel last weekend in Atlanta. (Courtesy)
Chaim Nissel, a dean at Yeshiva University who was an associate provost during Siegel’s tenure as a student, spoke at the Thursday night gathering and said he had known Siegel well, and even had the student visit his home. (Nissel was originally named in the lawsuit by the YU Pride Alliance against the university but was dropped after Y.U. argued that he did not have authority over whether the LGBTQ student club was approved.)
“He struggled to reconcile his identity and love of Torah,” Nissel said. “He died from mental illness.”
Yeshiva University had previously released a statement about Siegel’s death.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Herschel Siegel, a member of the Yeshiva University family,” the statement said. “We express our deepest condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.”
Siegel’s family did not respond to a request for comment. People close to the family said they were too distraught to speak to the press. The source from Atlanta who knew Siegel since he was a child said the family was “angry for the way that this is being spun,” suggesting that Siegel’s sexuality should not be the only focus.
“I do resent anyone that is trying to make this about him being gay,” the source said. “It’s the chicken or the egg situation. Did being gay in the Orthodox community make his depression more triggering, or was it that he was depressed, and felt alone, which made being gay so much harder?”
Even his closest friends say it’s impossible to untangle those forces.
“Herschel struggled with mental illness and struggled with accepting himself as a gay Orthodox man,” said Emily Ornelas, a friend who was close to Siegel when he was at Y.U.
“That’s a reality,” Orneles said. “Gay people in any organized religion struggle with that. But I do wholeheartedly believe that by the end of his life, he had come to terms with and accepted himself and was able to love himself for who he was in whatever capacity he could. I feel that is true.”
Ornelas says she is choosing to remember the many bright spots in her friend’s life, rather than focus solely on trying to identify reasons for his death. She recalled the way he connected with children when the two staffed a Passover retreat, as well as his energy in his many theater performances at Y.U., the way his smile lit up a room.
“I remember that his hugs were absolutely crushing,” Ornelas said. “I think he could have cracked my ribs easily. I remember that when he smiled, he smiled literally with every single one of his teeth. You could probably count them. I can hear his voice. He has a very particular affect to the way he spoke, and I think it was like a tiny bit of a Southern drawl. He was just like a really big part of my life — and all of our lives — for a very long time.”
At the memorial service, Weiss exhorted others who might feel tormented about being gay in an Orthodox community to hold on, despite their pain.
“You are not alone,” they said, holding back tears. “You have a future, and you have people who love and see you fully. You have people who celebrate all the wonderful, beautiful parts of you. And if it feels like you don’t have those people yet, we are here waiting for you with open hearts.”
They then shifted to a “a message to everyone else here with us tonight” — those who identify as allies, and those who are just deeply sad about their friend’s tragic death.
“Be like Herschel,” Weiss said. “Be like Herschel and embrace and love each of us with enthusiasm and with joy. Be like Herschel and see us as the full, valid and nuanced human beings that we are. Be like Herschel, and support us unconditionally. Be like Herschel so that we can continue to be here even though Herschel can’t. And be like Herschel, so that this never ever happens again.”
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The post Yeshiva University is left in mourning after a beloved gay alum dies by suicide appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump is poised to reinforce Iran’s regime — despite Netanyahu’s pressure
President Donald Trump’s Wednesday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took place with an air of urgency around Iran. Yet the men left their three-hour conclave without resolving a fundamental divergence: Israel is deeply suspicious of any agreement with the Islamic Republic, and Trump has a visible preference for keeping diplomacy alive.
So visible, in fact, that Trump announced on Truth Social after the meeting that negotiations with Iran will continue. Where does that leave Israel, which is deeply concerned that Trump, in search of a quick win, will go for a deal that eases sanctions — strengthening the Iranian regime at precisely the time when it seems brittle enough to fall? And what about Iranian critics of the regime, who have good reason to feel betrayed by an American president who encouraged them to protest, and now seems poised to pursue accommodation with the authorities who had protesters killed en masse?
Of course, nothing in the Trump era can be analyzed with absolute certainty. Strategic misdirection is a recognized feature of even normal statecraft, and Trump has elevated unpredictability into something close to doctrine. Yet even allowing for that ambiguity, the meeting made clear that Israel and the United States are not aligned on an absolutely key issue — a potentially perilous state of affairs.
What does Israel want?
Israel does not trust the Iranian regime, for myriad reasons. The Islamic Republic’s missile programs, its sponsorship of proxy militias, and its long record of hostility toward Israel are viewed as elements of a single strategic problem.
Because of that deep and deeply justified mistrust, Israel is wary of any deal that might stabilize or legitimize the regime — a risk raised by Trump’s interest in a new nuclear deal. Israeli leaders are concerned about long-term risk. A renewed agreement focused narrowly on nuclear restrictions would almost inevitably entail sanctions relief or broader economic normalization. Such measures, from Jerusalem’s perspective, would strengthen the very Iranian system that has spent decades spreading havoc across the region.
That doesn’t mean Israel would prefer immediate military confrontation, or that it will speak out against any deal. An agreement that would dismantle Iran’s expanding missile range, including systems capable of reaching Europe, and cut funding from its network of allied armed groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad — would possibly be of interest. Trump has so far not publicly stressed those demands.
Israel is politically divided, but when it comes to Iran, a broad consensus cuts across political lines. The regime must fall or radically change, for the sake of human rights within Iran’s borders, and that of a healthy regional future outside them.
What does Trump want?
The American position is less straightforward, largely because it is filtered through Trump’s distinctive political style, and his limited regional knowledge. Trump often appears unbothered by expert and public opinion; he seeks drama, through visible wins, deals, and dramatic reversals. He will present any outcome as an amazing achievement that no predecessor could have hoped for — even if he ends up signing an agreement that looks quite a lot like former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, which he walked away from in 2018.
Trump’s broader worldview might provide insight. Unlike earlier American administrations that explicitly championed democracy promotion, with mixed results, Trump’s national security posture has consistently downplayed ideological missions. His rhetoric and policy frameworks have reflected skepticism toward efforts to reshape other societies’ political systems, instead emphasizing transactional relationships and the avoidance of prolonged entanglements.
This orientation is reinforced by his political base. A significant segment of MAGA-aligned voters wants a more isolationist foreign policy. Within that framework, negotiations that promise de-escalation and risk reduction are politically attractive. Military confrontation, by contrast, carries unpredictable costs.
Trump’s posture, oscillating between threats of force and enthusiasm for negotiation, reflects the strange truth that American political alignments on Iran defy traditional expectations, with hawkishness losing favor on the right. He has preserved the military option while simultaneously projecting optimism about a deal. Meanwhile, a huge and growing armada is parked in the waters near Iran.
What does Iran want?
Assessing Iranian intentions is notoriously difficult. The regime’s history of opaque decision-making, tactical deception, and disciplined negotiation complicates any definitive reading.
Yet certain baseline assumptions are reasonable. First, the regime seeks survival. Whatever ideological ambitions authorities may harbor, self-preservation remains paramount. Sanctions relief, economic stabilization, and reduced risk of direct confrontation with the U.S. all serve that objective.
Second, Iran is unlikely to accept a permanent prohibition on uranium enrichment, particularly at civilian levels. Tehran has consistently framed demands for “zero enrichment” as infringements on sovereignty — a defensible position under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Third, the regime has strong incentives to resist constraints on its missiles and militias, even though the militias are completely indefensible. But the regime exists, essentially, to export jihad, and those groups have been a central pillar of Iran’s project for decades.
Could the Iranian regime be brought down?
This question lurks behind every discussion of Iran, though policymakers rarely address it directly. Regime change, while rhetorically invoked at times, presents immense practical challenges. Many observers doubt that aerial strikes alone could produce political collapse. Modern regimes, particularly those with entrenched security apparatuses, rarely disintegrate solely under external bombardment. Iran’s leadership has demonstrated resilience under severe economic and military pressure, maintaining internal control despite periodic unrest.
That means meaningful regime destabilization would almost certainly require fractures within the state’s military, intelligence, and security forces, or coordinated ground dynamics that external actors can neither easily predict nor control. Such scenarios introduce enormous risks, including civil conflict, regional spillover and severe disruptions to global energy markets.
The regime’s brutality may reinforce its durability. A leadership willing to impose extreme domestic repression is less vulnerable to popular pressure than one constrained by public accountability. Last month Trump suggested the U.S. would support the protesters; that pledge appears to no longer be on his radar. The protesters were not seeking a better nuclear deal — which is now his apparent sole focus — but better lives.
So what happens now?
All of this suggests that Israel will be unhappy with any outcome to this period of tensions. It is much less likely that pressure from Trump will bring real reform to the Iranian regime is than that Trump will sign off on a deal that seems counter to Israel’s long-term interests.
In the coming days, it may become clearer whether Netanyahu persuaded Trump to expand the scope of negotiations to include Iran’s missile program and its network of proxy militias. It is also possible that talks will collapse, and that military action will follow.
But this much is clear: If the regime survives intact and is strengthened in the process, that would be a profound tragedy. For 47 years, the Islamic Republic has oppressed its own people while exporting instability across the Middle East. That is roughly the same span of time that communism endured in Eastern Europe before popular unrest finally brought it down.
Only a month ago, there was a palpable sense that the Iranian people were courageously pressing for a similar reckoning. To reward a weakened and discredited regime at such a moment by helping it stabilize itself — in exchange for promises about uranium enrichment alone — would be a historic missed opportunity.
The post Trump is poised to reinforce Iran’s regime — despite Netanyahu’s pressure appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish congresswoman storms out of Epstein hearing after Pam Bondi raises her record on antisemitism
(JTA) — Rep. Becca Balint stormed out of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday after Bondi deflected questions about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and instead criticized Balint’s record on antisemitism.
Lawmakers called the hearing to press Bondi on a range of issues, including Epstein and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Balint, a Vermont progressive, asked Bondi during her questioning whether Trump had been aware of billionaire financier Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein when he was appointed as commerce secretary. The most recent files released last month showed that Lutnick had visited Epstein’s private island and dined with him years after he said he had cut off ties — and after Epstein pled guilty to sex crimes.
After Bondi refused to answer Balint’s question, the congresswoman replied, “I’m going to conclude that the president, in fact, did know about his ties.”
At the end of Balint’s questioning, which devolved into shouting as Bondi consistently interrupted Balint, Bondi then raised Balint’s record on antisemitism.
“With this antisemitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution condemning ‘from the river to the sea,’” said Bondi, appearing to refer to Balint’s April 2024 vote against a House resolution condemning the common pro-Palestinian slogan. (At the time, Balint said the resolution was “yet another way to sow division and demonize Palestinians.”)
Balint quickly shot back at Bondi’s remarks.
“Oh, do you want to go there, attorney general? Do you want to go there? Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust? Really? Really?” said Balint, before rising from her seat and exiting the chambers.
During her 2022 campaign for Vermont’s single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Balint, who describes her family as “Jew-ish,” frequently invoked the story of her Jewish grandfather’s murder during the Holocaust.
“My grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust,” Balint said in a campaign video at the time. “My whole life I’ve known that beating the forces set on dividing us takes showing up every chance you get.”
Balint’s grandfather, Leopold Bálint, was killed by the Nazis on a forced march from Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1945 after he stopped to assist a prisoner.
The hearing Wednesday featured scathing criticism from Democratic lawmakers of Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case, with Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin accusing her of “siding with the perpetrators” and “ignoring the victims.”
“If AG Bondi claims to care about Epstein survivors, why did she reveal their identities but redact the names of the rich pedophiles and sex abusers who hurt them?” Balint wrote in a post on X Wednesday. “She must take accountability for this cover-up and finally deliver the justice these victims deserve.”
The post Jewish congresswoman storms out of Epstein hearing after Pam Bondi raises her record on antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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What Carrie Prejean Boller tells us about Christian Zionism in the U.S.
Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California and a recent Catholic convert, was removed Wednesday from the Religious Liberties Commission after she made some controversial remarks about Jews and Israel in a hearing on antisemitism.
“Catholics do not embrace Zionism,” she said. “So are all Catholics antisemites?”
Prejean Boller was responding to the idea, presented by a staunchly pro-Israel set of Jewish witnesses testifying at the hearing, that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
This is a complex debate that has divided the Jewish community over the past several years, even before Oct. 7 shot the issue into the spotlight, with numerous debates over how antisemitism should be defined. But Prejean Boller was not, beyond a few mentions of Palestinian lives in Gaza, engaging with the usual questions that divide Jews on the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Her issue was with whether or not Zionism is part of Christian biblical prophecy.
“As a Catholic, I don’t agree that the new, modern state of Israel has any biblical prophecy meaning at all,” she said in the hearing. Later, she doubled down on X. “I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy,” she wrote.
What she was referring to was the idea of Christian Zionism — the theological belief among some Christians that the Bible supports the existence of the modern state of Israel. Some forms of Christian Zionism support the Jewish state as a necessary, prophesied precursor to Jesus’ return; all Jews must return to Israel before the end of days. Others may simply support Israel because they believe it shares their “Judeo-Christian” biblical foundations. But whatever the reasons, there has historically been widespread political support for Israel among American Christians. And that support has been core to Israel’s relationship with the U.S.
The lobbying group Christians United for Israel boasts a membership of 10 million, not only larger than any Jewish pro-Israel group but larger than the population of Jews in the U.S.; its influence has been key to passing measures such as moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The power of this support from evangelicals is perhaps why Dani Dayan, Israel’s former consul general in New York, said in 2021 that Israel “invested most of its energy in the relationship with conservatives, Republicans, evangelicals, and a certain type of Jews only.”
Prejean Boller’s comments are representative of a recent shift among American Christians, away from Christian Zionism.
“Where does my support for Israel come from? Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel,” said Ted Cruz on Tucker Carlson’s show last year. “Hold on, hold on!” Carlson responded, acting as though he had never heard of this crazy idea that Christians support Israel based on the Bible.
That Carlson, an influential leader on the right and a devout Christian, would act as though Christian support for Israel was not only unbiblical but absurd, was a bellwether.
According to a survey commissioned by the University of North Carolina, support for Israel among young evangelicals, ages 18 to 29, fell from 75% to 34% between 2018 and 2021 — in fact, support for Israel dropped more precipitously among this evangelical group than it did in the general American population. And a 2024 version of the same survey found that Christians were less likely to consider their support for Israel on biblical grounds.
Prejean Boller, who converted to Catholicism from evangelical Christianity in April, called out these evangelical beliefs specifically in a post on X, saying that her conversion to Catholicism was predicated in part on repudiating evangelical Christian Zionism.
“My conversion to the fullness of the Catholic faith exposed what I was taught in American evangelicalism, a version of Christianity that fused Jesus with a political agenda and called it ‘God’s prophecy being fulfilled,’” she wrote. “It isn’t.”
Prejean Boller’s statements join those of Carlson, as well as more openly conspiratorial and antisemitic influencers like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens — who Prejean Boller defended in the hearing as a Christian leader, saying she listens to the podcaster regularly and does not believe she is antisemitic.
These influencers and political leaders spread antisemitic conspiracy theories alongside sharp criticism of Israel, often on Christian grounds. All repudiate biblical justifications for Christian Zionism, and often frame antisemitic beliefs as core parts of Christianity.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a right-wing congresswoman from Georgia and a devout Christian, voted against an antisemitism bill in Congress on the grounds that it would persecute Christians for their religious belief that Jews killed Jesus; she has also invoked her Christianity when rejecting U.S. support for Israel. Greene tweeted her support for Prejean after the hearing on antisemitism.
To be clear, the vast majority of American Christians and particularly American evangelicals continue to support Zionism as part of their religious beliefs. But other forms of Christianity are gaining visibility and political power, shifting the dominant Christian views on Israel. If the current trends continue, support for Christian Zionism may continue to decline, whether or not Prejean Boller is on the Religious Liberties Council.
The post What Carrie Prejean Boller tells us about Christian Zionism in the U.S. appeared first on The Forward.