JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s new education minister Rafi Peretz said in a television interview that he supports gay conversion therapy and that he has used the practice to help homosexual youth. The comments from Peretz, who was appointed to the position last month, is the second controversial statement he has made in two weeks. Last…
A New Jersey-based gay conversion therapy organization was ordered to shut down after its founders went around a previous ruling and started operating under a new name, NJ.com reported. Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Berk, founders of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), were forbidden from running their gay-to-straight program in 2015 after a lawsuit…
Just four years ago, more than 200 leading Orthodox rabbis signed a letter asserting that therapy can “heal” gay Jews. The letter came amid a heated Jewish communal debate over so-called gay conversion therapy, a widely discredited, potentially harmful practice that is partially outlawed in some states. Opponents of the practice won a major victory…
The Orthodox Jewish nonprofit JONAH, which purports to help gay men become heterosexual, is operating in Israel after it was ordered closed by a court in New Jersey. Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing has referred patients in Israel to some of the estimated 20 to 30 licensed psychologists and social workers and 50 non-licensed…
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…
A New Jersey judge has ruled that a Jewish gay “conversion” group could be liable for the costs of reversing the damage it caused four young men while trying to curb their same-sex attraction. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso, Jr. ruled that Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) and its co-defendants…
Ultra-Orthodox mental health professionals are pushing back against efforts to restrict so-called gay “conversion” therapy, a controversial practice that aims to curb or reverse patients’ same-sex attraction. Amid a growing wave of legislation banning conversion therapy for teenagers, a group known as Nefesh has joined with the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America to…
