Lead stories in Times of Israel today.
Kveller via JTA — Mimi Lemay’s son, Jacob, came out as trans when he was just two-and-a-half years old.
“My initial reaction was a non-reaction,” Lemay said in an email interview. “The first time he said he was a boy didn’t register for me because I just thought it was ‘playacting.’ The word ‘transgender’ was mostly unfamiliar to me and I certainly didn’t associate it with someone as young as my child. Now I know better.”
In her new memoir, “What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son and a Journey of Transformation,” Lemay writes about raising a transgender child. But the book isn’t just about Jacob’s journey — it’s also about her own. Raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, Lemay left the community to forge her own path. It’s a powerful and moving story, and a must-read for parents of all stripes.
Yes you read that right. The article says a two-year old "came out" which is a slang for announcing that she was a different sex than the one she was born as. Hard to imagine a 2 year old making such a declaration. And the mother of course left ultra-Orthodoxy. What great pleasure the TOA has in reporting on such a story. They write it as if they were telling an inspiring tale of heroism and inspiration when really it's a tragedy about moral decay and mental illness.
And then more from you-know-who.
Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman on Thursday said that had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu been willing to compromise on religion and state issues, he would have joined a right-wing government alongside ultra-Orthodox parties.
“He is always giving in to the ultra-Orthodox,” he said in a Russian-language interview with Radio Reka.
“Conversion, civil marriages, public transportation on Shabbat — these are the issues that matter to us,” Liberman said. “Netanyahu isn’t willing to give us anything.
Thus, the state of israel heads to a third election not because of debates about the economy, healthcare, or even military security but over the Charedim.
And yet Mizrachi/Dati Leumi types and even some people who claim to be Charedi will announce that every Jew should move to the Zionist state, that coming to the Zionist state is coming home, that anyone who doesn't want to come is just being materialistic. I say the opposite, it's amazing that any God-fearing Jew wants to go there at all.
“…we who live here (in Eretz Yisroel) do not have the ability to do anything… because the government is in the hands of the resha’im, as is all of the media… however, the Rabbanim of Chutz l’Aretz, along with the shomrei Torah [there], certainly have an obligation to raise an outcry against every offense and attack on the holy Torah, because they [the Israeli government] still fear the demonstrations of Yidden in Chutz l’Aretz which have so far prevented them from taking even more drastic steps…”
(Sefer Kraina d’Igresa, letter 249, from the Steipler Gaon zt”l)
