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‘Conversion therapy is having a moment’ — what will that mean for LGBTQ+ Jews?
The Supreme Court dove into the culture wars again this week by hearing arguments on conversion therapy — a controversial pseudoscientific practice that attempts to change LGBTQ+ patients’ sexuality to align with heterosexual desires. In Chiles v. Salazar, Kasey Chiles, an evangelical therapist in Colorado, is alleging that Colorado’s conversion therapy ban violates her 1st Amendment rights, leaving her unable to work with patients who want to live a life “consistent with their faith.”
Conversion therapy is not solely an evangelical Christian problem. In 2012, a group of plaintiffs in New Jersey successfully sued a group called Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, alleging that it had committed consumer fraud by selling services that it claimed could turn someone heterosexual. The organization, known as JONAH, promised religious Jews that they could change their sexual orientation via methods that included being forced to strip naked and beat pillows that represented their mothers.
When JONAH was forced to disband after losing in court in 2015, it reformed just 11 days later as a new organization called the Jewish Institute for Global Awareness. In 2019, a judge found this was a violation of the original court order and shut down JIGA as well. Yet conversion therapy in the Orthodox world persists to this day. One new organization, Jewish Family Forever, led by Dr. Koby Frances, claims that “modern ideologies are leading people away from their values,” and its website prominently states that they are “encouraging Torah traditional heterosexual marriage.”
Chaim Levin, one of the plaintiffs who sued JONAH, is now a first-year law student at Drexel University and has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ Jews.
I spoke with Levin, who was raised in a Chabad household in Brooklyn, over the phone about Chiles v. Salazar, and how the Orthodox community currently navigates homosexuality. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you share what your conversion therapy experiences with JONAH were like?
I had been seeing a frum therapist in Flatbush since I was 15 for several reasons, including being gay. She actually was helpful for some of those other issues. But when I was older, and finally “acting out” on my attraction to men, she said she couldn’t help me anymore.
Two weeks before I turned 18, I talked to the director of JONAH after being referred to them by a rabbi. I then went on my first weekend retreat with them shortly after my 18th birthday, and was with JONAH for about a year and a half to two years.
There was bullying, there was nudity. There was staged humiliation, where they would have us recreate traumatic experiences. There was what they called “healthy touch,” which was where typically older men cuddled with younger men as a form of “father-son bonding” — in hindsight, a very sexualized experience.
The incident that ultimately caused me to leave and to sue JONAH was when my life coach forced me to get naked and fondle myself in front of him, after I repeatedly said I did not want to.
What was your first reaction when you heard SCOTUS was taking up a case on conversion therapy?
I’m a legal nerd and a law student, so I knew it was coming. I knew that federal courts disagreed on this issue. Conversion therapy is having a moment now. It’s a resurgence driven by panic and hysteria over trans people. I’m feeling incredibly frustrated, to be honest.
Why is that?
It’s unclear how conversion therapy bans are enforced. I actually don’t know of a single example of a ban being enforced. They’re a symbolic gesture, and many advocacy groups pushed for them and spent millions of dollars to get them passed. All it did was to drive conversion therapy underground.
No person offering conversion therapy is going to call it that. They’ll offer treatment for “sex addiction,” “men’s issues,” or “intimacy issues.” All the conversion therapy bans are also solely targeting licensed medical professionals. There are specific carveouts for religious counseling and life coaches, so this practice is unfortunately still thriving.
In Chiles v. Salazar, the prosecutors are presenting conversion therapy as a free speech issue. They argue that there is a difference between the speech of a medical professional versus their conduct. In their view, simply discussing or supporting a hypothetical patient’s desire to become straight is not harmful. How do you see this argument?
It’s a really good question: is it speech, or is it conduct?
In my case, the life coach told me to take my clothes off and touch myself as part of my conversion therapy. He wasn’t doing anything himself, but he was inducing me to engage in that conduct. I found out that another star witness for JONAH had the same life coach as I did, and he ordered him and another man to masturbate each other to the point of orgasm. Is that solely speech?
As a future lawyer, I almost have a little bit of sympathy for the prosecutor’s arguments. Yet I don’t believe any of these people are genuinely concerned for the well-being of queer people. They’re pushing an agenda.
How do you think the Orthodox Jewish community has evolved (or not) on homosexuality and conversion therapy in the last decade since your lawsuit?
I want to be sensitive. But I don’t believe that it’s a safe place for gay or queer people. I certainly am not going to tell people to leave the community. I don’t think that’s the answer.
But a community can only be as safe as it wants to be. There are still tons of therapists and life coaches in the Orthodox community offering conversion therapy. Their rabbis don’t want to deal with the problem of queer people.
I think JQY and Eshel are amazing and doing important work. But those organizations are not what I would classify as being in the mainstream. It’s not for lack of trying — they have turned into some of the only safe spaces for LGBT Jews given the climate we’re living in.
Do you buy the free speech, or free practice of religion, arguments when it comes to the conversion therapy you see still happening in the Orthodox world?
I don’t think free speech means you are absolved from consequences. I think people can be held accountable.
The thing I’ve encountered a lot with these conversion therapy providers is that they don’t claim they’re using religion in their counseling. I’ve always heard: “We’re a Jewish group, we’re religious people, but our therapy is not religious.” If you’re going to tell me “our therapy is prayer,” that’s one thing, but I’ve never seen conversion therapy in the form of prayer.
I just don’t buy it. You can’t use your religion to harm people in a way that doesn’t comport with reality. You don’t have a religious or constitutional right to hurt people.
The post ‘Conversion therapy is having a moment’ — what will that mean for LGBTQ+ Jews? appeared first on The Forward.
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University of Sydney Suspends Staff Member After Viral Video Shows Verbal Assault on Jewish Students During Sukkot
University of Sydney staff member verbally assaulting Jewish students during a Sukkot celebration on campus. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Sydney has suspended a staff member after a viral video showed her verbally assaulting Jewish students and teachers during an on-campus holiday celebration, sparking public outrage over one of Australia’s latest antisemitic incidents.
In a video widely circulated on social media, a university staff member — reportedly of Palestinian Arab background — is seen approaching a group of Jewish students and teachers during a campus holiday celebration, shouting antisemitic insults at them.
The incident has sparked public condemnation and renewed calls for stronger action against rising antisemitism on college campuses, as the local Jewish community faces an increasingly hostile climate and a surge in targeted attacks across the country.
During a Sukkot celebration organized by the Australian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) on campus, attendees — including students, teachers, and the university’s rabbi — were approached by a woman who asked them, “Are you Zionists?” while they gathered to participate in the annual Jewish festival.
“A Zionist is the lowest form of rubbish. Zionists are the most disgusting thing that has ever walked this earth,” the university staff member can be heard saying.
She then identifies as an “Indigenous Palestinian” and continues hurling antisemitic insults at the group, calling them “child killers.”
“You are a filthy Zionist,” she said. “You colonized us.”
This appalling video shows a Jewish academic and Jewish students at the University of Sydney being harassed by someone apparently of palestinian Arab extraction. The students were celebrating a Sukkot event organized by @AUJS, and there were no Israeli flags nor even hostage… pic.twitter.com/u7LJ2OxUCZ
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David Lange (@Israellycool) October 9, 2025
University security personnel tried to intervene as the incident escalated, but the staff member refused to leave and continued filming the group.
The woman is then seen in the video pointing at the group and shouting to a security officer: “Look at this rubbish, look at these parasites.”
University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott announced that the staff member had been suspended pending further investigation and offered a personal apology to the affected Jewish students and staff.
“We’re disturbed and appalled by the vision that depicts verbal abuse and harassment on campus,” Scott said in a statement. “Such conduct is utterly unacceptable, and we are taking immediate action under our codes of conduct, including suspending a staff member involved pending further assessment.”
“Hate speech, antisemitism, and verbal harassment have no place on campus, online, or in our wider community,” he continued. “We deeply apologize to any staff, students, or visitors who are distressed or impacted by this incident in any way.”
University officials referred the incident to New South Wales Police, who have opened an investigation into the matter.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) strongly condemned the incident, calling for swift action and prompt intervention by the authorities.
“This is the real face of antisemitism in Australia today. It hides behind an anti-Zionist mask,” the statement read. “This woman aimed to intimidate, threaten, offend, and humiliate a group of Jewish students just because they were Jewish.”
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to a report from ECAJ, the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, a significant increase from 495 in the prior 12 months.
The number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
Since the Oct. 7 atrocities, the local Jewish community has faced a wave of targeted attacks, with several Jewish sites across Australia subjected to vandalism and even arson amid an increasingly hostile climate.
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Catholic University of America Confiscates Oct. 7 Memorial, Citing Flag Policy Infraction
Israeli flags bagged up after being confiscated by Catholic University of America staff. Photo: Provided by Students Supporting Israel (SSI)
The Catholic University of America allegedly used its bureaucracy to suppress Jewish grieving and commemoration of the children, women, and men whom Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel by canceling a memorial display approved in August, The Algemeiner has learned.
According to the school’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter, which faced a series of obstacles just after being established, university officials cited an arcane policy which proscribes flying the flag of any foreign nation, except for that of the Vatican, on campus. However, SSI maintains that it was selectively applied to Jews with malice, citing that anti-Israel organizations have flown the Palestinian flag on campus numerous times, with and without official permission, as have many other organizations.
The Algemeiner requested photographic evidence of SSI’s claims of selective enforcement, to which the group responded by sending several pictures showing dozens of foreign flags flying on the campus, including those representing the nations of Brazil, France, and Ukraine. The group added that after canceling SSI’s memorial for the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 atrocities, university staff marched toward the event spaces and dismantled everything SSI had set up and topped off the act by stuffing Israeli flags into a plastic bag and leaving it on a chair.
“Two years after the deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust, Catholic University’s administration removed a memorial for the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre,” the group said in a statement shared exclusively with The Algemeiner. “Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated event by the administration. It is the culmination of a clear pattern of censorship of antisemitic incidents. By removing a peaceful display for murdered Israelis, the administration sent a chilling message that makes pro-Israel students feel unwelcome on their own college campus.”
Responding to The Algemeiner‘s inquiry regarding the alleged incident, The Catholic University of America apologized for enforcing the flag policy on a day of meaning to its Jewish students. It did formally comment on cases in which the other groups violated it.
“Catholic University acknowledges the deep disappointment of the student organization ‘Students Supporting Israel’ who found their memorial removed the morning of Oct. 7. The memorial was removed because it violated our flags policy, which states that the only flags authorized to be displayed in spaces on campus accessible to the public at large are the flag of the United States of America, the flag of the Vatican City, and the flag of Washington, DC,” a university spokesperson said. “That said, the university regrets that the enforcement of the policy coincided with a deeply significant day of remembrance for those affected by the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attack just two years ago.”
Foreign flags displayed in common space at The Catholic University of America.
It continued, “The enforcement of the flag policy on Oct. 7 is not a reflection in any way of the university’s views on and support of Israel. Following the terrorist attack waged against Israel, Catholic University President Peter Kilpatrick wrote to the campus community in which he strongly condemned the violence waged by Hamas and expressed sadness over the killing, kidnapping, and maiming of so many innocent people. He also addressed the rise in antisemitism, and violence against Muslim or Arabic students on other college campuses, and stated Catholic University’s zero tolerance for hate.”
US college campuses saw an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — after the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. In a two-month span following the atrocities, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.
To this day, Jewish students report feeling unsafe on the campus. According to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.
A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.
Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.
“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”
The survey said additionally that 34 percent of Jewish students reported knowing a Jewish peer whom someone “physically threatened on campus,” while 29 percent reported difficulties in attaining religious accommodations from their professors, confirming months of reports that Jewish students face both social and institutional discrimination at universities.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish man attacked in Montana by self-proclaimed Nazi on Oct. 7
A Jewish man in Missoula, Montana, was assaulted on Oct. 7 by a self-proclaimed “Nazi,” according to the Missoula Police Department.
On Tuesday, the suspect, Michael Cain, 29, got into an argument with the victim who had a visible tattoo of the Star of David on his forearm. Cain asked the victim about his tattoo and allegedly identified himself as a believer in the teachings of the Nazi party.
When the victim, who told Cain he was Jewish, then asked Cain to show him any Nazi-related tattoos on his body, Cain allegedly kicked and punched the victim, who was seated on the ground.
Missoula police then responded to the Poverello Center, a local homeless shelter where the assault took place, and later apprehended Cain who had fled the scene.
While en route to the local detention center, Cain disclosed to the arresting officer that he was a member of the “4th Reich” and said that while he did not attack the victim because of his Jewish identity, he would have if he had been more adamant about his beliefs, according to court documents obtained by local news outlet KGVO.
Cain was charged with felony malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights and his bond was set at $50,000. Missoula police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Montana is home to just under 1,500 Jews out of a general population of over 1.1 million. In 2023, the Anti-Defamation League recorded just 21 antisemitic incidents in the state.
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The post Jewish man attacked in Montana by self-proclaimed Nazi on Oct. 7 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.