Court Shutters Orthodox Jewish Gay Conversion Therapy Agency

Image by Screen Shot
An Orthodox Jewish nonprofit that purports to help gay men become heterosexual has been ordered to close.
Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or JONAH, must cease operations within 30 days, and refrain from therapy, counseling or treatment until that time, the New Jersey Superior Court ordered Friday. The group must liquidate its assets and dissolve as a corporate entity within six months.
As of Monday, the group’s website was still operating.
JONAH was found to be in violation of the state’s Consumer Fraud Act in a June civil trial before a jury. The lawsuit had been filed in 2012.
The three plaintiffs, who were former clients, were awarded approximately $72,000 in damages. Two were from Orthodox Jewish families, and one was Mormon.
According to the plaintiffs, JONAH claimed a success rate it could not prove and used scientifically questionable therapy methods, including cuddling, naked all-male weekend retreats in the woods, and beating effigies of their mothers.
In 2013, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a law banning licensed therapists from practicing conversion therapy in the state. The law has withstood court challenges.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO