Joy Returns to Yeshiva, But Some are Not Joyful

Literature Professor Joy Ladin wants to put the she back into Yeshiva. Formerly known as Jay Ladin, 47, has returned to the school as a woman and was put on leave after an outcry from religious conservatives at the school. She has now been reinstated over the objections of some of the faculty.

The Jewish University has many who take offense at Ladin’s transformation. Rabbi Moshe Tendler insists

“He’s not a woman. He’s a male with enlarged breasts. He’s a person who represents a kind of amorality which runs counter to everything Yeshiva University stands for. There is just no leeway in Jewish law for a transsexual. . . . There is no niche where he can hide out as a female without being in massive violation of Torah law, Torah ethics and Torah morality.”

That is why its Rabbi Tendler, not Tender.

Ladin is working on her memoir, “Inside Out: Confessions of a Woman Caught in the Act of Becoming.” The reinstatement represents the end to a controversy that began in 2006. Laden’s wife has filed for divorce and custody of their three kids.

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