Last month an online video of a prominent Orthodox educator discussing halachic attitudes towards gay people disappeared from the internet. 

Rabbi Eliezer Zobin, principal of Immanuel College, Bushey and the recently installed successor to Rabbi Alan Kimche at the independent Ner Israel Synagogue, has appeared in a number of videos made by J-TV, answering questions from schoolchildren on various topics. Neither he nor J-TV has explained why the video about same-sex relations was removed, but one can speculate that it must have touched a raw nerve somewhere.

From a copy of the video seen by the JC, Rabbi Zobin appeared to say nothing controversial, at least from the perspective of the mainstream Orthodox rabbinate today. He would “welcome a person of any orientation” into an Orthodox community and saw no halachic problem in inviting a gay couple to a Friday night meal. 

“I don’t see why a shul or a community should have a policy in which people are excluded… because of their partners,” he said. In the past, the community hadn’t always welcomed people in the “fullest way possible” or offered the necessary understanding.

For some, I imagine, his words contained too much emphasis on inclusion and too little reference to the Torah prohibition on same-sex practice. And mindful of the almighty row that broke out two years ago after Sephardi leader Rabbi Joseph Dweck’s appeal for greater empathy with gay people, Rabbi Zobin must have preferred not to get drawn into a public quarrel.

Over the past couple of decades, much of centrist Orthodoxy has undergone a shift in its approach towards LGBT people, responding to change within general society. While still upholding the halachic rejection of same-sex relations, rabbis now often prefer to stress this is simply one among many commandments and communities should seek to include, rather than exclude. After all, the United Synagogue does not check whether members use a mikveh.

Contrast this with the stance of the then Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits, during a House of Lords debate 20 years ago, in which he opposed lowering the age of consent for gay sex from 18 to 16.

The word “homophobia” was a new addition to our vocabulary, which was intended to “uproot existing moral order”, he protested. Words like “gay”, “lifestyle” or “partner” were being abused as terms to “whitewash what is morally unacceptable”. 

“Until recently, the language to describe such behaviour evoked abhorrence, by associating such practices with the depravities of the biblical city of Sodom or the pagan Greek island of Lesbos.” Instead, he remained convinced that “such violations of the laws of God and nature cannot endure in the long run” and hoped that “what is good and decent” would again prevail.

Speaking barely thirty years after homosexual sex had been decriminalised in the UK, he was expressing the views of generations which took it as self-evident that homosexuality was unnatural and perverse.

To many, those views would now appear antediluvian and repressive. But they might resonate with some. Take Rabbi Shimon Winegarten, the retiring rav of Bridge Lane Bet Hamedrash and a leading figure in Golders Green’s Charedi community.

In a recent letter in the Orthodox press, he denounced the government’s relationships and sex education policy, warning, “We will see a world undermined by confusion, reversion to the practices of Sodom, destruction of traditional family life…”

According to regulations which come into effect next year, schools will be required to acknowledge the existence of same-sex relations, though remaining free to teach that their faith disapproves of such relations.

Even if a school could avoid teaching subjects that contravened its beliefs, Rabbi Winegarten wondered, how will its pupils as adults “be able to survive in a Britain whose younger generation is being nurtured upon the notion that having two daddies or two mummies is normal and that gender dysphoria and forbidden relationships are the norm?”

Whereas 20 years ago Lord Jakobovits objected to the very term “homophobia”, the current Chief Rabbi has used it in order to attack prejudice against LGBT people. Central Orthodox rabbis today speak the language of compassion rather than abhorrence, urging the need to understand the struggles of people of same-sex orientation to live within the constraints of halachah.

Yet, some rabbis who identify with Orthodoxy feelthis does not go far enough. They remain troubled by the idea of denying LGBT people physical intimacy and of condemning them to celibacy. They grapple with the halachah in an attempt to find a way out of what seems a challenging moral problem.

Conversely, others think the only problem is conceding too much ground to liberal sentiment and not asserting sufficiently strongly what they believe inviolable Torah values.
But wherever one stands on the debate, it is surely regrettable if an Orthodox rabbi has been intimidated into withdrawing an educational video.