Jan 22, 2026 | Eshel in the News
by Nadine Epstein As a teenager in West Hempstead, NY, on Long Island, Oliver Paneth loved spending time at their family’s shul and was a popular babysitter in the Orthodox community. They also attended Yeshiva University High School for Girls in Queens. “I was never the girlie girl, I was way more into sports,” recalls [more]
Apr 22, 2025 | Eshel Out Loud
Growing up, I often felt invisible. As the fifth of six children, it was easy to fly under the radar as one of the middle children. Although my parents gave us all loving attention, I could be easily tucked away and go unnoticed in my family. To garner individual attention amongst all my siblings, I [more]
Jul 1, 2021 | Eshel in the News
R. Steve Greenberg Envisions a Gay Future as he discusses "Marry Me, However" in The Times of Israel. Rabbi Mordechai Vardi is the rabbi of Kibbutz Ein Zurim and a filmmaker. He recently focused his keen eye on his Orthodox community’s inability to offer any credible future to gay and lesbian young people. His film, Marry [more]
Aug 10, 2017 | Eshel in the News, Eshel Out Loud
Originally posted on Times of Israel For those who think that Orthodox means static and unresponsive to new understanding, well, think again. In a recent interview (in Hebrew) by a religious news organization, Makor Rishon, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, an outspoken Orthodox leader and the chief rabbi of Efrat, has shared that he believes homosexuals are [more]
May 18, 2017 | Eshel in the News
Originally posted on The Jewish Journal By eighth grade, Micha Thau knew he was gay. But he also knew that being gay was not acceptable in many of the Orthodox spaces he inhabited. So he buried that part of himself. But it didn’t stay buried. He began to suffer headaches, vertigo and other physical symptoms [more]
