Published: 5 April 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A LIBERAL NEW YORK City seminary will not ordain an openly gay student who is engaged to be married and completing his fourth year of rabbinical studies this spring, the Jewish Week has learned.
In a statement, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah student Daniel Atwood, 27, wrote: “Four years ago I came out as gay during my first year at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and it was decided that I would receive semicha [ordination] as their first openly gay student.
“After four years of study and my completing almost all of the program’s requirements, YCT decided not to give me semicha, news delivered to me only a few weeks ago, three months before my graduation, without any prior conversation on the matter.”
Atwood became engaged in the fall and is living with his partner.
The decision marks a turning point for the rabbinical school, which has served for nearly 20 years as the flagship institution for a subgroup of Modern Orthodoxy often dubbed “Open Orthodoxy.”
FULL STORY Liberal Orthodox yeshiva says it will not ordain gay student (JTA)
Photo: A class at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York (Courtesy Yeshivat Chovevei Torah)
