In openly displaying his homosexuality while serving as an Orthodox rabbi, Ron Yosef has broken a major taboo in the closed religious world that he inhabits.
Although May 17 is to be marked International Day Against Homophobia, the biblical stance on homosexuality remains clearly laid out in Leviticus, one of the five books of the Torah, which says that the sexual act between two men is an “abomination.”
But 38-year-old Yosef, who holds an Orthodox rabbinical diploma, believes it is possible to be “both gay and observant.”
He first became aware of his sexual orientation in his early 20s, with the realisation forcing him away from the faith and into the welcoming arms of secular Tel Aviv, the gay capital of the Middle East.
But it didn’t last long.
“By the age of 30, I was finally at peace with myself after deciding I could be both Orthodox and gay even though many observant people in the same situation had left the religious world,” he told AFP.
In 2008, he set up a website to help others in his situation which soon turned into an organisation known as HOD, the Hebrew acronym for “Orthodox Jewish homosexuals.”