If Only Tyler Clementi Had Been to a Gay Synagogue
October 7, 2010
by Rabbi Victor Appell
URJ Congregational Specialist for Marketing, Outreach & New Communities
http://blogs.rj.org/reform/2010/10/if-only-tyler-clementi-had-bee.htmlReading the news reports about the suicides of Tyler Clementi, as well as four other gay teenagers who recently committed suicide, brought back a flood of memories. I know something of what they went through. Not a day of my three years in junior high school went by without someone calling me a "->-bleeped-<-got." Most days it was usually accompanied by a random punch or shove, or knock to the ground. Usually it was at the hands of one or two particular bullies, whose names I still remember 37 years later. This was long before anyone had thought of anti-bullying campaigns or curriculum about harassment. Like Tyler, Raymond, Seth, Asher and Billy, I know what it is like to wish I were dead.
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But at the bottom of the page there was a small three-line ad that read, "Gay Synagogue: Friday Night Service," followed by the time and location. Every Friday, when we picked up our paper in class, the first thing I did, as discreetly as possible, was turn to the second section to make sure the ad was still there. And in doing so, I reassured myself that the Gay Synagogue was still there. For by the time I was 14, I knew that I was both Jewish and gay and was determined that I would not have to sacrifice one in order to be the other.
