Jewneric: A New Platform for the Jewish Voice

I think it is wonderful that Joy has been able to become the person that she is. As amny people do not know, she did not choose this for herself. It is an unfortunate birth defect that her brain developed as a female and her body did not. Evidence of deceased trans women has show this to be a fact! Any other birth defect we as a society would try to fix, so why should this be any different! Is it not true that the good Lord our God created us in his image and that he doesn’t make junk. He must have had a very good reason to create so many people with this afliction.The native Americans placed very high regard on these people because they felt that anyone transgendered was special as they had two spirits. Joy, welcome to the sisterhood of women!

Congrats to Joy for becoming who she really feels she is and having the courage to return to YU, not exactly the most welcome community. Shame on Rabbi Tendler and the other rabbis who are so blatantly opposed to her. Joy is a professor of literature, and from what some comments on the NYPost.com site suggest, quite a good one. Just because what she did is outside of Rabbi Tendler’s understanding of halacha does not make it wrong. Furthermore, Rabbi Tendler’s reaction is one reason why many Jews are leaving Orthodoxy and finding themselves attracted to Conservatism, Reform, and even other religions.

Transgressing the Torah or not, why would she want to continue working in an environment that does not appreciate her for who she is and has tried so hard to get rid of her? I understand making a statement, but why would you want to work with people who will (attempt to) mock you in public?

Though I hardly know Joy, and was never her student, she has been incredibly generous as a mentor and support in my work. She is one of the most brilliant people I know, is a lucid and important scholar, a wonderful poet, and also one of the kindest people I’ve met. No one would make the decision Joy did, to become herself in this way, if they could at all avoid it. I’m delighted and impressed by the faculty members who supported her. If she were forced to leave, it would be YU’s loss.

While I sympathize with Prof Ladin’s inner suffering, and while R Tendlers choice of words were probably too blunt and harsh (as usual), you can’t escape the fact that YU is an Orthodox Jewish institution, and that Jay’s lifestyle violates those values. Google JD Bleich’s article on this where he shows 3 biblical prohibitions involved: 1) castration 2) self mutilation in general and 3) cross dressing. I think true tolerance means live and let live, and so we should not chase after Prof Ladin and persecute him, but by the same token we shouldn’t be forced to accept him into our own community and affirm his life style either. Why can’t he teach in one of the thousands of colleges where he won’t offend the millenia old values of the students?

I’m reminded of the South Park where Randy has surgery to become a dolphin and demands that society accept him as such. Liberals often impose a paradoxical view of tolerance, where, ironically, tolerance can be forced upon others.

This all points to the inherent contradiction in YU. Can it really exist in both worlds without sometimes sacrificing the values of one or the other? I love and believe in YU but it’s a legitimate question which is difficult to answer. It’s all moot legally since YU is not actually technically a Jewish institution, as it takes govt money and can”t discriminate (which also raises questions). But my point is that Prof Ladin should still chose to leave so as not to offend the religious sensibilities of so many students.

I am happy to see such a wide ranging and sensible expression of views here so far (not something Jewneric always enjoys, unfortunately). However, while I sympathize with Dr. Ladin’s personal issues, clearly there was some serious deception here on her part. The fact that she waited until IMMEDIATELY after her confirmation as a tenured professor meant she knew what the response would likely be and wanted to prevent the university from firing her. This makes it a little more malicious, as it harms the university and leaves them without recourse.
Unfortunately, the university is not blameless either. Since YU’s official religious affiliation is “None” (check it out; they had to in order to receive federal money), they may not reject students or teachers based on religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. I have spoken to former and present officers of the admissions department, who all have stories about non-Jews trying to get admitted (usually backing off at the last moment due to the Jewish studies requirements - the university can’t force you to be Jewish, but can force you to take shiur as an academic requirement). RIETS is obviously Jewish, but Yeshiva College, Stern College, and many of the accompanying graduate schools (I am not sure about Azrieli and Revel) have no religious affiliation, and some of those schools make things very difficult for their religious students despite their affiliation with Yeshiva (see the history of Einstein and Wurzweiler).
The point of all this is YU tried to have it both ways, and now is getting screwed by that attempt. You cannot claim to be neutral, then get upset when someone takes you at face value. Unless they give up federal funding and declare a religious affiliation (as they had during the Vietnam War, making all YU students Divinity students and granting them exemption from the draft), they have no right to claim Jewish law as a reason to reject or fire a professor, even in the press. While I philosophically and religiously agree with R’ Tendler, legally he is in the wrong (and should probably not have said anything to the press, though that’s another matter).
The story’s publicity may not be so innocent, by the way - Opie and Anthony seemed to have picked it up from the Post, but the Post article was written by a former editor-in-chief of the Stern newspaper The Observer. Who knows what kind of background this story’s publication really has or whether it would have been so public had someone with a history (or possible grudge) with the school hadn’t written it?