FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ira Stup, organizer of JTS Students for Change

Phone: 215-704-5537

Email: ira.stup {at} gmail(.)com

JTS STUDENTS FOR CHANGE REACTS TO JTS POLICY CHANGE

New York, NY (March 26, 2007) – JTS Students for Change is gratified to see another step within the Conservative Movement towards the full and unequivocal inclusion of LGBT people into Conservative Jewish life.

It is our hope as members of this community that the Seminary’s decision will begin a larger process of healing and inclusion in which LGBT people can finally begin to feel truly welcomed and embraced by their religious movement. We commend JTS and Chancellor-Elect Eisen for taking a step forward in this process. Their decision sends a message of hope to all marginalized Jews that the Conservative community’s understanding of Jewish values can be used to heal and not hurt it’s most vulnerable constituents.

However, our joy does not overshadow what necessarily has to be cautious optimism. This decision is only the beginning of what must be a much larger process of change. The culture and atmosphere at JTS is still incredibly hostile to LGBT students. Almost no support systems are in place for students questioning their sexuality and LGBT students endure almost daily debates on their religious legitimacy within the Conservative Movement. Heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships are modeled as ideal and superior in JTS classrooms and residence halls.

Furthermore, in contrast to public announcements stating otherwise, JTS made almost no effort to engage the undergraduate student body in the discussion of accepting qualified openly gay rabbinical and cantorial students. Chancellor-Elect Eisen’s letter to the larger community is unfortunately misguided in its assertion that “Even before the December CJLS vote, JTS had initiated forums at which students could make their opinions known…to the faculty and administration.” JTS Students for Change was created precisely because of this lack of engagement.

JTS Students for Change looks optimistically to the future. The Conservative Movement and JTS have finally initiated a path which can lead to a stronger, more unified, and most importantly more inclusive and just Jewish community. With this is mind, we continue our struggle for a Conservative Jewish Movement which embraces and nurtures all of its members equally.

JTS Students for Change was recently formed by a coalition of undergraduates at JTS, in order to give students an effective and productive method of advocating for change surrounding issues of LGBT inclusion and ordination. The group hopes to help create a more diverse, open, and welcoming community at JTS for all Jews, in all spheres of student life.

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