Yeshiva U recognizes Hareni, LGBTQ student club

By Emily Goldberg

Yeshiva University and YU Pride Alliance, a proposed student group, settled a four-year court case on March 20, with the Modern Orthodox, private school agreeing to recognize the LGBTQ student club.

“Current students will be implementing a club, to be known as Hareni, that will seek to support LGBTQ students and their allies and will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis,” the parties stated jointly. “The club will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture.”

Hanan Eisenman, YU’s communications director, added that “the students who filed the lawsuit had actually agreed to implement the club envisioned and approved by Yeshiva in 2022.”

“Our students’ well-being is always our primary concern,” Eisenman stated. “We are pleased that our current undergraduate students will be leading the club announced today, which is the same club approved by our senior rabbis two-and-a-half years ago.”

The club that Yeshiva proposed in 2022 was to be called “Kol Yisrael Areivim Club,” and the university said that it was to be “for LGBTQ students striving to live authentic Torah lives” and was “approved by the administration, in partnership with lay leadership, and endorsed by senior roshei yeshiva,” or senior rabbinic deans. (Kol Yisrael areivim refers to Jews being mutually responsible for one another.)

The statement did not detail why YU made the decision to recognize the club now. But the announcement comes weeks after a student was allegedly assaulted on campus and called homophobic slurs. It also comes as YU has positioned itself as a refuge for Jewish students seeking to transfer from non-Jewish schools.

A March 6 column in the school’s student newspaper the Commentator alleged that one of the organizers of the Pride Alliance had been assaulted at a student activities fair.

A student is accused of taking photos of the organizer, then shoving him while calling him homophobic slurs and telling him that he did not belong at YU. The column said the victim reported the incident to campus security.

The club announced last week takes its name, Hareni, from the first word in a declaration that some Jews say daily during morning prayers in reference to the biblical commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself.

Hayley Goldberg, co-president of the club, said that “this victory is not just for our club” but is “for every student who deserves a safe space to be themselves.”

Goldberg’s co-chair, Schneur Friedman, said that the agreement “affirms that LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University are valued members of the community.” (JNS sought further comment from the club about the agreement and learned that Hareni signed a contract giving the New York Times exclusive access.)

Yeshiva University has never before recognized an official club of this sort, according to Katherine Rosenfeld, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward and Maazel and an attorney for the students. “Just the fact of having an official LGBTQ student club on campus will send a message of tolerance and support,” she said.

The role that senior rabbis at YU are to play in the club is the subject of some dispute and confusion. JNS sought comment from the university and the lawyer for the students about what it means that “senior” YU rabbis have issued “approved guidelines” for the club. JNS also sought comment from several of the most prominent senior rabbis who lead the school.

Sara Asher, a licensed psychologist and dean of students at YU, told JNS that she worked with students and senior rabbis at the school to establish this new club.

“Under student leadership, Hareni will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of YU’s roshei yeshiva as it seeks to support our LGBTQ students with planning for events,” she said.

“I am grateful as we move ahead together in the spirit of a unified campus culture,” she said.

When asked about those “guidelines,” Rosenfeld, the attorney, said that she does not think the students see what will happen with their club as a departure from the ways the university otherwise operates as an Orthodox institution.

“The students understand and appreciate that they chose to go to a university that has this tradition and heritage and affiliation, and that comes with all the benefits and perhaps limitations in different aspects of life,” she said.

A tale of two clubs

There is also somewhat of a dispute about whether the newly approved club is substantially different from the similar one proposed in 2022.

Rosenfeld said that there was never any student club in 2022, and “Kol Yisrael Areivim” was an “administration driven project” that never held any events.

“We just don’t see any relationship between that initiative announced in their press release and the really exciting agreement that has been reached, which involves a true student club led by students who want to support the LGBTQ community and work with the university to make it a big success,” she said.

YU Pride Alliance filed a lawsuit in 2021 against Ari Berman, YU’s president, and Chaim Nissel, its vice provost, alleging that the university thrice denied official recognition to the club.

The following year, YU announced Kol Yisrael Areivim, which YU Pride Alliance said was not the product of student input and failed to meet the group’s aim of creating a supportive space for LGBTQ students on campus.

Also in 2022, the New York Supreme Court ruled that YU had to implement the Pride Alliance. The university then suspended all the clubs on campus.

Josh Yuter, a prominent writer and Jerusalem-based rabbi, who holds ordination (and undergraduate and graduate degrees) from Yeshiva University, wrote that “the extent to which such a club contravenes Torah depends entirely on what the club does.

“If the club provides support for people regarding how to live an Orthodox life as best as they can, this could even be a positive,” he stated. “I do not know the details, but I do know they matter.”

Rabbi Gil Student, director of the halacha commission at the Rabbinical Alliance of America, wrote that “this is a big deal.”

“YU settles and agrees to establish another LGBTQ club under the guidance of roshei yeshiva,” he wrote. “I don’t know what that means.”

David Benhamu, a senior at YU studying physics, said that he thinks the club may have both positive and negative impacts on the Modern Orthodox Jewish community.

“If this club is truly about acceptance and understanding and being a kinder person while also understanding the Torah has 613 mitzvot and that all of them must be followed, and the club can effectuate itself in that way, then this club could be a good thing,” he said.

“However if the club follows more of a line of there are 612 mitzvot and one that we’re not so fond of, then it could be more problematic overall,” Benhamu said. He added that YU must be “intentional” and “extremely careful” about the events that Hareni is allowed to run.

Others said that the club’s acceptance was unreservedly a positive thing. 
 “My hope is that a club being officially instated will be a welcome step toward greater acceptance of our LGBTQ students on campus,” said Sam Weinberg, a senior studying English and president of the Yeshiva Student Union, a part of the student government.

“LGBTQ students and allies, just like everyone else, deserve feeling that they belong at YU, and while a club doesn’t rectify all of the upsetting experiences that students have shared, I hope it emphasizes and legitimizes this sub-community as a valued part of our student body,” Weinberg said.

Shalhevet Cohen, a senior business student and president of the Beren Campus Student Government at YU, said that creating Hareni has unified the campus. (Yeshiva’s Beren campus, in midtown Manhattan, is where undergraduate women study at the school, while the Wilf campus, in Washington Heights, is where undergraduate men study.)

“Students and administrators worked tirelessly to create this club, ensuring every student at YU can feel at home,” Cohen said.
Matt Miller, an associate English professor at YU and chair of the department, said that the English department on the Beren campus has long tried to welcome LGBTQ students.

“We are happy about the recently announced agreement and hope it leads to greater understanding and engagement,” he said.
Seamus O’Malley, an associate professor of English who studies 20th-century British and Irish literature, said he looks forward to working with the club.

“The university is now a kinder and stronger place thanks to the brave activism of past and present queer YU students, who deserve our gratitude,” he said. “I’m also impressed at the creative solutions that some Yeshiva administrators proposed that led to this breakthrough.”

Ashley Hefner, a junior, called it “a beautiful thing that this club is being instated, because I know a lot of people in this school identify as LGBTQ as well as being frum Orthodox Jews.

“People that identify both with being Orthodox and with being LGBTQ will now have a safe space where they can tap into both identities,” she said.

Gabriella Gomperts, a junior, said that it is important for LGBTQ students to have a supportive place to come together, but YU has the right to make decisions as a religious institution.

“Every student has the right to feel like they belong, and as a minority group that has faced serious discrimination here, this club might even be a necessity for these students,” she said.

JTA contributed to this report.