The new school year at a state religious school in Givat Shmuel, in the Ono Valley on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, began with an explosion when parents and the students discovered that one of the children in the third grade is a transgender who was born a girl but identifies as a boy. It is still unclear how the student was outed…
The parents’ attorney, Roni Sassover (soon to start serving as the defunct Yamina party’s MK in a dissolved Knesset – DI), responded to attacks on the school and the parents from LGBTQ groups, saying: “The argument that has been made in recent days as if the parents are fighting against an 8-year-old child is sheer demagoguery. The parents are fighting for the Torah education they chose to send their children to. This education has simple rules such as Shabbat, a yarmulke, tzitzit, and a dress code.
“The Religious Education Administration, the municipality, and the school deceived and hid the truth from the parents and this is at the heart of the problem. It’s a reality in which the behavior of a mother who secretly decides that her two-year-old daughter was a boy, is imposed on the community, exposing an entire school to the progressive agenda contrary to everything the school believes in and educates for, that’s the problem.”
To Quote Rabbi Ari Shvat at https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/8685
Regarding the Jewish view on transgenders or transsexuals, the following is an answer I wrote to a European psychologist who asked regarding how halacha relates to a transgender who wishes to convert:
Firstly, I might strongly suggest to you (or whomever asked you this question) seeking professional help, for the person apparently has a problem of self-identity, and self-esteem. Making external changes, and thinking that “the grass is always greener on the other side”, is an unfortunate guarantee for constant unhappiness. Someone who has the trait of jealousy, will always find something new to be jealous about, and is never satisfied. The only solution is to study, analyze and work hard at exercises to uproot the trait of jealousy. Judaism teaches: “Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his share”. If you really believe in God, than you know that He gives each of us a certain fate, and our role is to destine that fate…
Judaism does not recognize the possibility of changing the gender which God gave you, so in the synagogue, a born woman would have to sit with the women, not be counted in the minyan (the quorum of 10 adult males needed for public prayer), could not be called to the Torah, etc.
The Solution to the Issue of the 3rd Grader Mentioned at the Outset of this Post According to the Religious Leadership of the Religious Zionist World
In a Hebrew article at https://www.inn.co.il/news/577709 a signed petition regarding the transgender 3rd Grader was addressed by leading Rabbis of the Religious Zionist Movement.
Senior rabbis in religious Zionism published a public letter to the Council of State Religious Education a few days ago regarding the issue of the transgender student in the third grade at the religious state school in Givat Shmuel.
In a letter to the Council of State Religious Education , the rabbis state: The girl must enter a girls’ class. It is appropriate to be careful not to hurt her and she must be helped patiently.
The letter is signed by Rabbi Haim Druckman, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, Rabbi Chaim Steiner, Rabbi Eitan Eisman, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Rabbi David Chai HaCohen, Rabbi Uri Cohen, Rabbi Eliakim Lebanon, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, Rabbi Jacob Filber, Rabbi Iser Klonsky, Rabbi Aryeh Stern, Rabbi Mordechai Sternberg, Rabbi Jacob Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Artziel.
Now, dozens of rabbis from Religious Zionism join their words. “We agree with the opinion of the Torah and the clear voice of our great rabbis, the elders of the generation regarding the duty of a girl to behave like a girl and a boy to behave like a boy,” the letter reads.