2011-03 - The Commentator [Purim] - Jewish Homosexual Demands More Condemnation

Jewish Homosexual Demands More Condemnation

SATIRE

March 2011

After wrestling with his sexual inclinations for years, YC Sophomore David Smith came out of the closet earlier this month. The transition, he says, has been harder than he could have imagined: "I haven't been spit at, cursed out, or publicly degraded," Smith complained. "It's like people don't even care."

Smith, who hid his true sexual orientation for years out of fear for public ostracism and private disparagement, has been disappointed by the "liberal lovey-dovey stuff," as he describes it. "Where are all the good old hell-damners?" he asked.

Smith is another in a line of Yeshiva College students who have been welcomed as themselves with "love, support, and understanding," said one senior administrator. The letter Smith recently posted on his blog (www.controversialgayjew. com) was met with nearly unanimous support, as 98 of 104 comments ran along the lines of "we are proud of you, David." The remaining six were split evenly between confusion about whether Smith was the 60s Abstract Expressionist sculptor and gentle corrections of Smith's grammar.

Smith was prepared – and even excited – for the anticipated condemnation. "I thought this was going to be really epic, especially after the panel last year," he said. He pulls out a stack of note cards. "I even prepared a whole series of sassy comebacks! Do you want to hear them? Please?"

Instead, he has had to face the worst-case scenario: acceptance. "This has been incredibly hard for him," said Laura Smith, David's mother, who has known about her son's orientation and encouraged him for the last eight years. "He has always been sure of who he was – an outcast, a pariah – but now he's not so sure. I don't understand how the community could do something like this to him. He's only twenty-one, and now he has to try to reinvent himself completely on the assumption that people will accept him?"

Though understated by nature, Smith has taken to extreme flamboyant behavior in an attempt to claim this very identity: "I don't even like pink, but what can I do? I'm sick of people treating me with civility and respect, and I really wish they would treat me the way that I've always expected to be treated." Smith has only been further frustrated, though, by a Facebook campaign that got nearly half of Yeshiva College students to wear pink shirts last week in support of him.

"At this point, I've been approaching random Yeshivish people on the street and telling them I'm gay!" said Smith. But even that hasn't worked: a guest at the Wilf Campus over Shabbat from a rightwing yeshiva sat down with David on Friday night to talk about the struggles of living openly gay in the Orthodox community. "The conversation didn't last all that long," said Smith, "so we ended up talking about Glee for like four hours."

Despite all the hardships. Smith is managing to acclimate to his new life. "It's hard when everyone has been so...supportive," Smith sighed. "But I'm Switching shiurim next week, and I'll see if I get a rise out of a different Rosh Yeshiva."

(All rights belong to the Commentator)

2003-11-07 - The Leper [Satire] - Closet Onlysimchas Viewer Also Closet Homosexual

Closet Onlysimchas Viewer Also Closet Homosexual

by Jason Blair Jr.

November 7, 2003

Woodmere, NY – Late one night last week, the parents of local resident Jason Weinberg walked in on their son as he was perusing the guestbook of a recently engaged couple on onlysimchas.com. In a subsequent discussion Jason revealed that he had in fact been a closet viewer of onlysimchas since the Web site’s inception. Interviews with the boy’s peers have led the family to reevaluate its understanding of Jason’s sexual orientation.

News of Jason’s preferences sent shockwaves through his high school, HAFTR, a modern orthodox institution in Long Island. According to students, Jason has never had any trouble in school and has participated in many extra-curricular activities. He is president of the chess team, an unusually active member of the debate squad, and a dedicated wrestler. A classmate of Jason summed up the prevailing view of Jason’s dumbfounded friends. “I can’t believe that he spends hours a night checking out posts on onlysimchas,” he said. “That’s so gay.”

Such sentiments have spurred local parents into organizing a grassroots campaign to get the onlysimchas site shut down. The Web site ostensibly provides an on-line forum for Jews to exchange best wishes and photographs on the happy occasions of weddings, bar/ bat mitzvahs, engagements, and births. But HAFTR parent Sheila Broslowski had her doubts. “If onlysimchas can turn Jason gay then what about the rest of the kids?” she lamented. Many students, citing the site’s flamboyant use of exclamation points, agreed with Broslowski’s contention that persistent browsing of the site can potentially “gayify” viewers.

Some, however, maintain that the community is jumping to conclusions. “Just because someone reads posts on onlysimchas doesn’t make him gay,” said accountant Phil Silverman. “He could just be a woman.”

This article can be found on the Wayback Machine

2010-02-28 - The Commentator [Purim] - Yeshiva Hosts Panel of Intolerant Bigots

Yeshiva Hosts Panel of Intolerant Bigots

SATIRE

February 28, 2010

Last Sunday, four brave figures emerged before a 700-person throng in Weissberg Commons to discuss their struggles growing up in the YU world as active, practicing bigots. The audience listened intently to the heart-wrenching stories of two racists, a homophobe, and a terrorist. "My friends were always so...so...accepting," said one panelist. "They were always helping out others in need, going to gay panels, recycling—that kinda stuff. But all I ever wanted to do was learn Torah." Many present at the panel said the event changed their lives, giving them a wholly new perspective, but don't actually think they're going to now do anything different. All but two Roshei Yeshiva signed a letter guaranteeing the four panelists copious Olam Haba, adding that any MYP students who attended the event will have their past shiur Incompletes changed to A's.

(All rights belong to the Commentator)

2010-02-28 - The Commentator [Purim] - 'Recent Events' Catching On

'Recent Events' Catching On

SATIRE

February 28, 2010

In light of what it describes as a "tastefully and tactfully enabling and ennobling" handling of the gay issue at Yeshiva University, the organization formally known as Gay Straight Alliance Network International (GSANI) has replaced the word "Gay" in its title with the phrase "Recent Events." It will now be known as Recent Events Straight Alliance Network International. Explaining the name change, public spokesperson Levi Ticus stated, "We've been looking for a long time for a better word to describe homosexuals. The old word was a problem – put briefly, it was sooo gay. Now we have a tasteful way of describing homosexuals without offending the public." Aside from RESANI, several other organizations have adopted the change, including the Gay Liberation Front (now RELF), as well as YU's own Tolerance Club (YUREC).

Asked about his reaction to the name changes inspired by his word choice, YU President Richard Joel replied wittily if unitelligibly, "Let them call it recent, but they must remain decent!" RIETS dean Rabbi Yonah Reiss, however, took a more negative tone, noting, "We must always remember that recent events are not meant to be discussed in a Yeshiva."

(All rights belong to the Commentator)

2010-02-28 - The Commentator [Purim] - Prominent Rosh Yeshiva Emerges from Closet

Prominent Rosh Yeshiva Emerges from Closet

SATIRE

February 28, 2010

In a startling mishap that brought all YU students closer together, Rabbi Mayer Twersky inadvertently locked himself in a Glueck Center closet last Tuesday. "I was really worried," admitted a fretful semkikha student, "I thought he would never come out." As word spread, a crowd of male MYP students unwittingly huddled together for warmth in the cold rain outside the Center to recite Tehillim for the closeted Rosh Yeshiva, and chanted "Get Rabbi Twersky out of the closet."

As the gathering of concerned students grew, one unsuspecting and well-intentioned Rosh Yeshiva herded them into Weissberg Commons to discuss their feelings. A series of disgruntled announcements about that discussion will come out of the RIETS office later this week, followed by an unending stream of Closetator articles. Richard Joel's office announced that the Presinator (as he likes to be called by his coworkers) will come out with two letter later today, one in favor of the discussion, and one against it.

Unfortunately, the crack squad of YU security staff failed to free the startled Rabbi for several hours, trapping him with a mop and a pile of uninstalled Glueck center outlets. They begged him to try the door-knob from the inside, but the Rabbi was too afraid of what he would find if he reached out in the mysterious closet. The Rosh Yeshiva heard some noises, possibly the protests of the Rubin scaffolding raccoon to this intrusion on its new home, but he adamantly refused to turn on the light and expose anything or anyone who was in the closet with him.

Rabbi Twersky supposedly mistook the dark closet for a classroom while closing the door behind him. "I generally close my eyes when walking into a Glueck center classroom," Rabbi Twersky explained, "because I am nervous of what pritzus the building-wide wifi and disturbing Glueck hallway pictures might surprise me with." It is unclear as to why he and Rabbi Reiss have not demanded that the wifi be removed from Glueck yet. After asking what Yeshiva The Closetator attended in Israel, Rabbi Bronstein assured us that they would likely remove the routers themselves over Passover break when no one would be around to stop them.

The thinly veiled and euphemistically named YU Closet Klub (YUCK) requested that the Rabbi engage them in an open dialogue about his experience. Several Roshei Yeshiva signed a letter condemning any consideration of a free exchange on this issue, declaring closets an "abomination." They further demanded that maintenance remove all closets from the YC campus in order to preserve unintereupted, straight, hallway walls. Little do they know, cracks have recently appeared in the walls of RIETS as well.

A queer number of hours and several screwdrivers later, Rabbi Twersky emerged from the questionable cupboard and remarked, "It's so liberating to be out of the closet, I do not know why people would choose to be in there in the first place... it's so dark and lonely."

At the moment, the University's official position on the accidental closeting of Rabbi Twersky is ambiguous. A University Alumni representative, Steven Greenberg, encouraged open discussion about this issue, along with all humanitarian crises, while at the same time condemned all those who did so as legitimizing the act of locking yourself in a closet. Avi Klostic, president of the YU Tolerance Club, best known for making tolerance controversial, asked the Rosh Yeshiva to hold a panel discussion on his choice to lock himself in a closet. The Rosh Yeshiva declined, claiming a strong allergy to panels of any kind, and insisted that his decision to be closeted was not a choice.

"I am glad Rabbi Twersky had the strength to come out of the closet," said an anonymous YC alumnus who recently attended a panel discussion, "but he really should look where he is going in the future."

(All rights belong to the Commentator)

2010-02-28 - The Commentator [Purim] - Azhara Hamura

אזהרה חמורה

עלו על דעתינו העניין—תועבת ה'—של חגיגות 

נפרדות ח"ו לזכרים ולנקבות, ועלינו לתקן את האסון הזאת.

ע"כ באנו לגלות דעתינו, דעת ישר »»

אם אין קמח אין תורה, אם אין בנות יש "גֵי פָנֶל"

ונראה לנו שיש איסור חמור להשתתף ולהופיע בחגיגת ישיבת רבינו סטיבן גרינברג!

ועדיף שכולם ילכו לחגיגת בנות שטערן בכרדוזו כדי 

להשתכר איתן, לדבר איתן, וביעקר לשדך איתן!

באנו על זה למען קדושת וטהרת עמינו,

2010-02-28 - The Commentator [Purim] - Student Pulse: Gay, Cheating, Coffee, and Such.

Satire

Student Pulse: Gay, Cheating, Coffee, and Such.

1. The Gay Question?

Yes	45%
No	32%
Maybe	23%

Since everybody knows that Sy Syms students cheat like, a lot, what is the most creative method of cheating?
a. Asking your neighbor
b. Writing answers on your hand
c. Stealing the test
d. Stealing money and bribing the professor
e. Stealing the professor and selling the money
f. Using ESP
g. Using ESPN
The correct answer was e.

3. Coffee is the best, right?

a.

Yes

74%

4. What would you say is the relationship between YU's Wireless Internet and your mood on a daily basis?

a. The lack of reception frequently correlates with a lack of patience for my peers and classes	3 bars %
b. No Internet Make Angry	Limited Connectivity %
c. All Jewish History and no Gmail make Moshe a dull boy	youtube.2%
d. I don't even go to classes where I know I can't get internet	everybody %

"The slow internet speed has made my...uh...videos very tough to load. And also, it's ruined three shidduchim for me on YUconnects."
"I think the last comment should have been more explicit"

5. According to a recent Gallup poll, President Obama's unfavorables have risen to 57%

a. Yes	0%
b. No	0%
c. N/A	0%

"I'm not entirely sure this is really a question"

6. Where should the women's chagiga be held?

a. The fourth floor of IHP	475%
b. Weissberg Commons	100%
c. Cardozo	-3
d. Xerxes's Harem	129 Nations %

Quick Numbers:

• 9,461 students started the survey, of which 437 finished it. 6,478 were from YC, 2,963 were from SCW, and 20 students were from either Sy Syms school.
• The gayest major by far was English, with well over 30% of the English major respondents, and another 70% of other majors who sounded like they were English majors, answering "yes" to the Gay Question.
• The smartest group on campus is The Closetator Staff, 100% of whom agreed that coffee was the best.
• Both Sy Syms for Women students wanted the chagiga to be in Xerxes's Harem.
• Third-year MYP Honors Psychology Majors who take an average of 13.4 credits per semester and live on campus on the sixth floor of Rubin all responded that No Internet Made [them] Angry.

(All rights belong to the Commentator)