by Richard Verber

Like most people commenting on this week’s JC’s story ‘Jewish school pupils taught how to cure gays’, I wasn’t actually in the JFS classroom at the time.

However, unlike most people commenting on this week’s JC’s story, I’ve actually seen JONAH at work firsthand, and in the UK. In Golders Green, no less.

Here’s how it happened.

Four years ago I worked for Jewish Chaplaincy in Brighton. I was tasked with setting up a new region for the organisation. I had a great time – hosting Friday night dinners, running seder nights for students who had never celebrated Pesach before and organising a beautiful weekend away in Lulworth Cove.

Working with young Jews does not come without its challenges, of course. Students would share their personal issues and use me as a sounding board to help them explore their ever-changing identities. We would discuss all sorts – Judaism, health matters, family problems, university difficulties and of course, love.

One of the most difficult challenges some students face is questioning their sexuality, particularly if they haven’t had the opportunity to do so before arriving at university due to family, friends or perhaps school constraints.

The key role that Jewish chaplains play is one of pastoral care – a shoulder to cry on, impartial advice (although admittedly from an orthodox perspective) and an ear to simply listen, perhaps when noone else will. This service is vital and often goes unnoticed and without fanfare. It has quite literally saved the life of more than one Jewish student.

During our staff summer training, one of the topics we discussed was sexuality. At the end of October that year we were invited to attend a seminar by somebody who had worked with us during our training. At this seminar there would be a presentation by JONAH, known then as Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality. Today they are known as Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, which is an important point, missed by all commentators so far: they are not talking about herbal medicines – with their name change and rebrand, JONAH is making it clear that homosexuality is a disease, which, like any illness, can be healed with the correct treatment.

(From what I understand, although at least one renegade chaplain four year ago did solicit the services of JONAH and invite them to speak to students, Chaplaincy as an organisation has steadfastly refused to engage with them and made it clear they were not welcome on any UK campus.)

At the time I knew nothing about JONAH, but I knew that coming out to their friends and family was an issue students in Brighton were grappling with and felt it would be at least of interest for me to hear what they had to say.

It was a truly surreal experience.

The room had perhaps a dozen or so people in it, a handful of chaplains and other orthodox professionals who had come to listen. We heard from one of JONAH’s Co-Directors that the premise of JONAH’s work is that there are underlying issues which make somebody have a same-sex attraction (they don’t use the word gay). If these issues can be successfully treated, they said, and if the person in question truly wants to change their sexual orientation, they will be successful.

To prove the theory works, JONAH presented us with a young man who shared with us the harrowing story of his upbringing. His parents divorced at an early age and he went to live with his father, in a brothel. The father, who ran the brothel, was often absent, and, by all accounts, not a great dad. His son grew up seeing abused women treated as sex objects. This upbringing – featuring a lack of strong male role-model and a particular view of women – led him, the argument went, to seek solace, and eventually sexual gratification, in the arms of men. Having decided that a homosexual lifestyle was not what he wanted, he was fortunate, he said, to be introduced to JONAH, who, through corrective behavioural therapy were able to cure his same-sex tendencies and allow him to change his sexual orientation.

I have no idea to what extent this young man’s story was accurate. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

What I do know is that organisations which approach homosexuality as a mental illness and the controversial methods used by JONAH and similar outfits have been sufficiently critiqued by psychiatrists and orthodox rabbis alike. A group of orthodox mental health professionals, rabbis, scholars and educators have also produced a thoughtful statement regarding what the orthodox community must do to welcome gay and lesbian Jews. It perhaps doesn’t go far enough for some, but it is certainly a more constructive approach than that of JONAH and a good starting point for orthodox Jews wrestling with issues surrounding homosexuality in their community.

Few serious mental health professionals today consider homosexuality to be a conscious behavioural choice, or worse, a curable mental illness.

But here’s my truly knock-out blow, as if one were needed:

You would have thought that the director of JONAH would have done everything he could to ensure the environment in which he raised his children was as conducive to producing heterosexual offspring as could be. After all, it’s your upbringing which leads you to be gay, right? Here’s the thing. During the question and answer session, the director revealed, almost sheepishly, that his own son was gay. His own son! And does his gay son want anything to do with JONAH? Even though JONAH was set up by his father in response to his son being gay? Does he balls.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.