Jewish Queer Youth to provide grants to Yeshiva U student clubs amid suspension

A nonprofit group that has been supporting LGBTQ students at Yeshiva University will give $500 grants to any student group affected by the Modern Orthodox school’s decision to suspend clubs instead of recognizing the YU Pride Alliance.

Jewish Queer Youth will raise money to continue offering support to the roughly 130 student groups affected by the university’s decision if clubs are not permitted to operate soon, the YU Commentator, the student newspaper, reported late Monday.

“If YU is going to turn this crisis on the queer students, then the leading organization serving queer Orthodox youth can stand up and say: We have all of your backs and none of you will suffer because of how YU is treating its queer students,” Rachael Fried, the executive director of JQY said in a press statement.

The announcement is the latest twist in a saga that has gripped the Yeshiva University community and drawn national attention. The university has declined to formally recognize the YU Pride Alliance, a move that would afford the LGBTQ student group access to funding and the right to meet on campus, saying that the group violates the school’s “Torah values.” (While attitudes toward individuals who identify as queer have eased somewhat in many Modern Orthodox settings in recent years, gay sex is forbidden by nearly all Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law.)

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