A couple of months ago I began working on an essay on Orthodoxy & LGBTQ+ issues. I ended up putting it aside for now to focus on more pressing projects, but i want to share one piece of it which unfortunately became very relevant this wknd (1/) At the time, libsoftiktok was also in the news, and the Orthodox community was not taking it well. There was a lot of defensiveness or even agreement with LoT, & little to no introspection.(2/)

@DBashIdeas fact-checking thread (not comprehensive) 🧵:
the case is “based on the claim that [YU] is not religious enough to be allowed to make its own decision on religious matters.” This is somewhat misleading - the claim is that YU, bec of its institutional structure (1/) @DBashIdeas does not meet the legal requirements to qualify for a religious exemption from NYS anti-discrimination law. They are implying that marginalization of LGBTQ+ students is a religious imperative- which, 😬(2/)

@bariweiss apparently believes that the following is normal and appropriate mentorship behavior:
45: "Sabatini asked a female master’s student in his lab if she was
“fucking” another lab member, and then asked her to rank the male lab members whom she
would “fuck.” "(1/

https://twitter.com/lianafaye/status/1519751629628575744

47: at a retreat in 2016, Sabatini took a woman post-doctoral
fellow aside and asked her to “choose” between two male postdoctoral fellows for sex (2/

I read some good Torah over shabbos. And I needed it, especially after this awful week. And I realized that one of the things that makes me so angry about all of this is the abuse of Torah (1/) As @Doc_RPS discusses at length, yes, sometimes Torah is part of the problem. And that’s complicated and uncomfortable and a thing the Jewish community needs to deal with. But Torah is vast! it contains multitudes! (2/)

CW: rape, sexual/physical abuse (thread)
To exist as a woman, or queer person, in a religious tradition is to love something that often fails to love you back 💔 (1/) On my darkest days, It seems like an act of supreme self deception- loving the thing that hurts you because it’s easier than letting go
But on better days, I see it as an act of resistance- not only rejecting what’s unfair, but refusing to let it steal what is meaningful (2/)

More #myorthodoxlife content: An Orthodox- positive media appreciation thread (1/) A lot of Orthodox folks are saying “the critiques of Orthodoxy are valid, but why are the stories of those who leave the only ones being told?” (2/)

Having grown in a yeshivish (Ultra Orthodox, non chassidic ) community, and spent the last 5 years in predominantly centrist/Modern Orthodox (MO) circles, some thoughts on #myorthodoxlife (1/) I’m seeing a lot of ModOx women tweeting that their lives are nothing like popular depictions of Orthodoxy. This is true- while the MO world is far from perfect, in terms of gender/sexualityissues & cultural openness, it’s light years ahead of yeshivish Orthodoxy (2/