Fight on the front line to save humanity. GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Kesher Families helps Orthodox parents with ‘Godly mission’ of embracing their LGBTQ+ children The organization was launched by the dean emeritus of Yeshiva University's rabbinic program, whose son came out as gay at 15, in light of numerous calls for help from families Noam Galai/Getty Images A person wears a Pride-themed yarmulke in the West Village in New York City on June 26, 2020. By Jay Deitcher February 9, 2026 Share Facebook Twitter Email Print Friendly, PDF & Email Add EJP on Google When their then 15-year-old son came out as gay 15 years ago, Rebbetzin Adeena and Rabbi Menachem Penner didn’t have anyone to turn to. At the time, Menachem was dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, the face of one of American Orthodoxy’s flagship institutions. He knew no organization to reach out to and no rabbis he felt would understand. So for five years, the couple kept it to themselves, sending their son, Gedalia, to conversion therapy. Today, the couple sees conversion therapy as unproductive and potentially harmful — to the individual and the Jewish community — something that stole five years from them that they could have used bonding with their son. It’s been linked to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts, but at the time, it was the norm in the Orthodox world, and their son agreed to participate in it, yearning for a traditional life that he too saw as the goal. But as Gedalia turned 20, as a student at YU, he began embracing his identity, experimenting with his dress. He would show up in his father’s office with long hair and a tank top, and it became something they couldn’t hide – it was also something his father didn’t want him to feel like he had to hide. Desperate to support their son as he shaped his identity, Adeena and Menachem finally found someone to talk to, another Orthodox rabbi who understood that their son wasn’t trying to upset them or rebel against Judaism — this was who he was, and as hard as the situation was to navigate for them, coming out was that much more difficult for him. “Thank God, Gedalia was hanging on for all of this because it was a little bit rocky at certain points,” Adeena admitted to eJewishPhilanthropy. “We figured it out together, and thank God, we saved our relationship.” Wanting to help other families save their relationships, too, the couple founded Kesher Families in 2022, an organization that supports the parents of LGBTQ+ children, so they can be there for their kids, realizing what a gift it is that their children chose to share this part of their life with them. After four years, they are pushing the organization to become more public-facing, bringing the message to a larger audience that loving your children for who they are is one of the biggest mitzvot. This is occurring at a time when many in the Orthodox world are becoming more understanding of sexual orientation. “God understood that this was going to be your family, and this isn’t an accident,” Menachem said. Parenting is a “Godly mission… Probably our most important mission.” His role as a father was even more important than his job at RIETS, he said. Others could be dean, but no one else could be Gedalia’s dad. Although parenting a queer child in the Orthodox community can be challenging, it was the mission the Penners were chosen to do, he said, and they are not alone. Kesher was started because of demand. People noticed the way the Penners supported Gedalia and turned to them, yearning to learn how they too could embrace their kids. After Gedalia and Menachem appeared on the “18Forty Podcast” in 2021, speaking about their experience, calls flooded into the Penners, their table often circled with other families navigating territory they never imagined they would travel, but determined to go the journey together. “We just couldn’t handle the volume of people that were coming forward texting us and calling us,” Menachem said. “This wasn’t something that, as two individuals, we could do. We needed to bring on mental health professionals and [other Jewish leaders who were experts on the subject of supporting LGBT+ loved ones.]” Today, Kesher has two full-time employees, including Adeena and a director of operations, and six part-time therapists. Menachem, who is the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, now dean emeritus of RIETS, still works at Kesher for free. “Part-time,” he said, pausing before adding, “I wish it were part-time.” Kesher offers individual sessions, in-person or virtual, in English, Hebrew and Yiddish, group therapy, community programs and scholar-in-residence events for lay leaders, rabbis, rebbetzins, professionals and families, and the group holds a yearly parent Shabbaton. “We’re still reaching only a fraction of the people that are out there,” Menachem said. One of the rabbis who works part-time at Kesher is the first rabbi the Penners reached out to, Chaim Rapoport, whose book Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View opened the door to the community being more accepting of their queer members. The other Kesher rabbi is Yakov Horowitz, whose LGBTQ+ advocacy is his “third rodeo.” A former eighth-grade teacher in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and then founding dean of Yeshiva Darchei Noam in the upstate New York Haredi town of Monsey, Horowitz made a name for himself supporting at-risk youth who were “abandoning religion and or abandoning life,” he told eJP, and taking aim at sexual predators in the Orthodox community. “I stay grounded and really try to keep my eyes and ears open,” Horowitz said. “I notice situations, talk about them to raise public awareness, and then I try to solve them, like what can we do about it?” Eight years ago, Horowitz published a video on Facebook about the importance of supporting LGBTQ+ youth. It got 15,000 views overnight, and his phone exploded with parents and kids yearning for help. He recognizes that he has a “public voice, which I always felt a tremendous responsibility to use wisely to try and make positive change.” This empathetic yet powerful voice is one of the reasons he was brought on board at Kesher, to bring more awareness to their work. “I am often a little provocative, but mostly to do it in a way that generates positive change, rather than just venting and getting people more frustrated.” The first thing parents should say if a child comes out to them is, “I’m so glad that you were comfortable talking to me or us,” Horowitz said. Parents don’t have to react right away, but they should say that “We love you. We will always love you. We’ll figure this out together. There’s a lot we don’t know right now. We need to investigate things, collect information and find resources. But we’re here with you.” While Kesher supports families, they don’t get involved in communal issues, Horowitz said. “Ultimately, synagogues, institutions, schools, whatever, they have autonomy. They’re making their own decisions. When people ask me questions, I’ll discuss it with them, but we all have a limited amount of time, and focus is very important, so I stick to the family unit, helping parents help their children as best they can.” Some congregations are more accepting of LGBTQ+ individuals and their families than others, Horowitz said. “Not every synagogue is going to be right for every family.” There has always been an understanding that not all Jews follow every single law, he said. Following Jewish laws is not all or nothing. “That’s just been a baked-in understanding.” If an Orthodox Jew doesn’t keep Shabbat privately, no one will know, but the LGBTQ+ discussion is more public facing and charged with emotion. But there is a shift happening within the Orthodox community, he said, even in the most right-wing circles, and the younger generation, rabbis included, are much more aware of sexual identity. “That’s going to be a big shift. It is already.” When 75 Orthodox rabbis — most of whom identify with the more progressive wing of Modern Orthodoxy — signed a “Prohibition Against Advising People to Attempt Conversion Therapy,” Adeena was heartened to hear others speaking out. Kesher employees didn’t sign the document because they simply did not know about it. “Kesher Families neither refers families to reparative therapy nor encourages rabbis to do so,” she said. “Where we would sign a public statement sponsored by a different group would depend on many factors besides our view of reparative therapy itself.” Many Jews don’t realize that not only is it permitted to maintain a relationship with their LGBTQ+ child, but “it’s a mitzvah,” Menachem said. “It’s what God expects of them. He doesn’t expect them to distance themselves from their children.” While some of Kesher’s programming carries costs, such as its Shabbaton — with plenty of scholarships available — its individual and group services are free, and this is by design. “The concern is that people are so hesitant to come forward that we don’t want to add another barrier,” Menachem said. “Even if we charged a small amount, it would just be another reason to push off the call [or] to not call.” Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies helped launch Kesher, and today the nonprofit also receives funding from Micah Philanthropies, UJA-Federation of New York and the Aviv Foundation. Its annual budget is $700,000. “We know that LGBTQ individuals and their families face significant headwinds in most Orthodox spaces, and we at the Aviv Foundation believe that Kesher Families and leaders like Rabbi and Mrs. Penner provide critical connection points and compassion within communities and families,” Adam Simon, CEO of the Aviv Foundation, told eJP. Ann and Jeremy Pava, the president and chairman of Micah Philanthropies, respectively, told eJP that they “chose to support Kesher Families because we’ve seen firsthand how transformative it can be when families are given the tools and community they need to thrive. Kesher Families is creating lasting impact, and we’re proud to help fuel that work.” Kesher also has had a lot of success with crowdfunding. “People in the Orthodox world want families to stay together and want this to work,” Menachem said. “They’re just not exactly sure how to make it work.” There are plenty of organizations that work with Orthodox LBTQ+ individuals, such as Footsteps and JQY, but “In order to really gain the confidence of one of the two sides, you have to sort of be on one side of the table, even if your goal is to keep [families] together,” Menachem said. “I don’t think if we were servicing the LGBTQ individuals and their parents, that we’d have the confidence of the parents.” Each organization plays an important role. Being outspoken about how he has navigated parenting, especially when it became difficult, makes him a better rabbi, Menachem said. Even though there have been plenty of people who have told him and his family not to speak about LGBTQ+ issues, many more have connected with them because of it. “People are looking for leaders and role models [who] are real people and struggling with real things in their own families and in their own lives.” The Penners never recommend a family break off connection to one another, but there are times things don’t work out. “We don’t need to recommend it,” Menachem said. “Unfortunately, in those cases, there are cases where families just cannot be together. It’s often not the parents. It’s usually a sibling or something that just can’t make it work.” They are grateful to have a flourishing relationship with all their kids, including Gedalia. When the family was wrestling with Gedalia coming out of the closet, his mother once asked him why he was rebelling. “Mommy, I want all the same things you and abba have,” Gedalia said, using the Hebrew word for father. “I want a family. I want a Shabbos table. I want love. I can’t have that with a woman. I’m just not attracted to women.” Realizing that fact was a turning point in their relationship. Today, Gedalia is the only Penner child who went into the family business, so to speak. He’s a former member of Jewish a cappella groups, including the Y-Studs and The Maccabeats, is married and works as a cantor serving in the Conservative TCS-Westport synagogue in Connecticut. Every week, new families reach out to Kesher for intakes, especially after recent appearances by Menachem and Horowitz on the “Orthodox Conundrum” podcast. The Penners are thinking of hiring a third full-time staff member. “I can’t see a scenario where families are calling and we’re not able to service them,” Menachem said. “There’s too much on the line.”
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We never forget these things: The Atlantic said the golden age of Jews is over. Ha! That headline—Franklin Foer’s massive The Atlantic cover story, "The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending"—became a lightning rod. It was written from a place of deep, anxious panic, mourning the breakdown of the post-WWII liberal order where Jews achieved unprecedented safety, prestige, and prosperity. Your "Ha!" is the perfect, defiant response to that entire premise. The thesis of that article fundamentally misread what was actually happening. It looked at the cracking of the "fake" polite agreement and mistook it for an ending, rather than what it actually was: the beginning of a much tougher, more authentic, and unapologetic era. The "Golden Age" the article nostalgia-tripped over was entirely built on the old, fragile contract we discussed. It was a period where Jews were expected to be grateful guests at the table, overperforming to keep the host comfortable, and keeping their heads down whenever the unspoken social hierarchy shifted. Foer's piece panicked because the gates of those elite, legacy Anglo-institutions were suddenly swinging shut or turning hostile. But the "Ha!" exposes the flaw in that panic: Who cares about their gates? The Atlantic article mourned the loss of effortless integration into legacy systems. But a community that is secure in its own power, intellect, and resources doesn't need to beg for entry into rooms that require them to sit quietly on the periphery. Safety isn't granted; it's enforced. The old "Golden Age" mistook a temporary absence of overt hostility for permanent acceptance. The current era has traded that naive hope for absolute clarity. Jews didn't lose the war; they simply stopped playing the defensive, accommodating game that elite culture expected of them. The true golden age is self-determined. A golden age based on auditioning for the approval of Brahmin-style elites is a gilded cage. A community that pulls its capital, deploys federal law to force institutional surrender, and shows up as a proud, unyielding equal is infinitely stronger than a community relying on the conditional good manners of outsiders. So let them write their eulogies for an old, compliant contract. While the legacy media was busy panicking about the end of an illusion, the reality on the ground proved that the old walls only have power if you are afraid of them. Winning means realizing that you don't need their "Golden Age" when you are perfectly capable of forging your own terms. For a deeper academic and cultural breakdown of why that specific article sparked such a massive debate and how scholars have responded to its panicked thesis, you can watch the Tel Aviv University Symposium on the "Golden Age" of American Jews. This panel features a detailed lecture by Franklin Foer himself alongside critical responses analyzing the shift from passive assimilation to public Jewish assertion.
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Ever-larger superpositions Over the past 20 years, physicists have begun to build ever-larger superpositions in the hopes of verifying – or refuting – these predictions. Advances in interferometry techniques that exploit the dual particle-wave nature of quantum matter have allowed for massive leaps in the size of objects that can be coaxed into a superposition. Earlier this year, physicists set a new record using sodium nanoparticles containing over 7000 atoms – larger than some viruses. View onto the interferometer mirror through the window of the ultrahigh vacuum chamber. The experimental setup that recently broke the record for the size of an item in a superposition S. Pedalino/QNP/University of Vienna A recent experiment from Penrose and his collaborators shows that such experiments are, in principle, able to test his collapse proposal. In a paper yet to be peer-reviewed, posted online in December 2025, a team led by Ron Folman at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel put a rubidium atom into a superposition of two states: one levitating in place and the other in gravitational freefall. Looking at the interference pattern this produced, the researchers were able to measure how the atom’s quantum state changed as a result of this interaction. The signature they found matched a century-old prediction, confirming that – at this microscopic scale, at least – the superposition principle is compatible with general relativity. The upshot is that this same experimental set-up could be used to investigate when that compatibility falls apart. Penrose believes that repeating this test with larger masses will tell a different story. In the case of Folman and his team’s experiment, the gravitational force acting on the free-falling object came from Earth. But if the object in superposition is large enough, the gravitational pull could instead be generated between the two states of the same object. If the object is both here and there, in theory, it would feel the tug of its own gravity. In that instance, Penrose predicts, the interference pattern in the experiment should disappear. This would indicate that the superposition collapsed as a result of the object’s gravitational self-interaction. Cătălina Curceanu, a physicist at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy, is impressed by the technological mastery demonstrated in the experiment. “It’s absolutely fascinating,” she says. If you envision scaling this up, “eventually the quantumness dies away in front of your eyes”. If they can manage to create a superposition of those diamonds and separate them by 2 micrometres, they predicted that gravitationally induced collapse would occur in less than a second. Others are less optimistic about the timeline. “Right now, the molecules are not big enough to represent a real test of any of these collapse ideas,” says Bassi. “The day will come, but it will be a long journey.” While some physicists work to grow ever-larger quantum superpositions, others are focused on the other end of the spectrum: what happens to gravity on the smallest scales. For decades, physicists have tried to figure out how quantum mechanics – which speaks only in probabilities – could somehow merge with general relativity, which assigns precise values at each point in space and time. Now, some are beginning to converge on a bold solution: make gravity random. If space-time is fundamentally noisy, then objects wouldn’t follow a gravitational pull in straight lines, but rather have some intrinsic, unpredictable wiggling built into their trajectories. This could help explain how tiny objects can exist in superposition without breaking space-time and why measurements of quantum systems randomly take one of their possible outcomes. Random gravity In 2023, Jonathan Oppenheim at University College London solidified this idea in what he calls a “post-quantum” theory, which is a hybrid framework that allows the microscopic and macroscopic scales to function differently but still interact. “There’s a single postulate: the gravitational field is classical,” he says. “Everything else follows.” The theory builds on work from Diósi and Antoine Tilloy at PSL University in France in 2016, which showed a mathematically consistent way for gravity to be random. Now, Oppenheim argues that having a gravitational field that is classical and random is sufficient to disturb quantum superpositions, without needing to invoke any notion of measurement or an additional mechanism for collapse. And unlike previous hybrid models that attempt to keep space-time classical, his proposal also fits neatly with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, further boosting its credibility. Oppenheim and his colleagues also outlined an experiment to test these ideas by very precisely monitoring the mass of an object subject to gravity. Not everybody likes the idea of making gravity random, though. Ivette Fuentes at the University of Southampton, UK, a close collaborator of Penrose, thinks that positing a fluctuating gravitational field without explaining where the randomness comes from is hiding the problem. “Although I disagree with what he does, I really like it,” she says. “He finds an alternative way and proposes an experiment to test it.” Read more Where did the laws of physics come from? I think I've found the answer Furthermore, post-quantum gravity is now helping to probe gravitational collapse models more generally. Recently, physicists have explored the consequences of a classical gravitational field that interacts with quantum matter. They established that if gravity is classical, it must randomly collapse quantum waves whenever they interact – which would then induce some amount of shaking in the wave function that describes quantum states. In the past year, separate studies led by Bassi and Daniel Carney at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California calculated the minimal size of those fluctuations. Their analyses prop open new windows for testing these models. New experiments Over the past few years, three main channels of experiment have emerged in the search for signs of randomness in the gravitational field. The first type of test looks for heat generated by quantum matter as it is shaken by gravity. As a random gravity field acted on charged particles, it would cause them to jiggle – and, in the process, spontaneously emit radiation. Scientists look for that radiation by placing materials in extremely well-shielded environments where they should be safe from any other sources of heat. Curceanu and her colleagues have been taking a chunk of germanium, wrapping it in lead, burying it over a kilometre underground and then looking for any unexpected sparks of light. Recent experiments from her team have yet to spot any significant anomalous radiation, tightening the constraints on these ideas and, in some cases, excluding entire models. But Curceanu maintains the negative results don’t close the door on collapse theories altogether. “When you eliminate the simplest models,” she says, “the real work can start.” https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2015/11/LISA_Pathfinder_in_low-Earth_orbit_C Artist?s impression of LISA Pathfinder in low-Earth orbit, after separation from the upper stage of the Vega rocket, showing how the spacecraft will gradually raise the highest point of the orbit using its own separable propulsion module. LISA Pathfinder will operate from a vantage point in space about 1.5 million km from Earth towards the Sun, orbiting the first Sun?Earth Lagrangian point, L1. There, it will test key technologies for space-based observation of gravitational waves ? ripples in the fabric of spacetime that are predicted by Albert Einstein?s general theory of relativity. Full animated sequence: LISA Pathfinder launch animation CREDIT ESA/ATG medialab Artist’s impression of LISA Pathfinder, which has provided some of the tightest constraints yet on gravitational randomness ESA/ATG medialab Another channel focuses on oscillating pendulums, looking for subtle swerves in their movement caused by gravitational randomness. Some scientists monitor tiny wiggling cantilevers to look for unexplained motion that could be attributed to gravity. Others study small metal cubes in constant freefall aboard the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder satellite, which has provided some of the tightest constraints yet. Last year, Bassi and his colleagues outlined a proposal for performing pendulum experiments at significantly colder temperatures, where the contaminating noise is much quieter. Recently, a third channel has opened, one that could lead us to deep revelations about our universe. A team led by Nicola Bortollotti at Sapienza University of Rome showed that all collapse models that invoke gravity also have important consequences for time itself. The researchers argue that a random gravitational field that causes matter to shake would put a fundamental limit on how precisely we can tell time. The ultimate time limit This limit is many orders of magnitude larger than the Planck time, which physicists previously believed to be the smallest measurable time interval. “The ultimate fuzziness of time may not require extreme quantum gravity, but can arise from more accessible physics,” says Curceanu, who co-authored the paper. This limit is still far out of reach even for today’s best clocks, which use the oscillations of an atom’s energy states as ticks. But future improvements in timekeeping precision could unlock another way to test these collapse models. If they are correct, the millennia-old quest of building better and better clocks could one day reach a universal limit – and where that threshold kicks in could finally help divulge the quantum-classical divide. Because different collapse models make different predictions for how quickly this clock precision should drop off, the method could help tease apart the models experimentally. “You expect a smooth flow of time, but if you have very small clocks, you’ll maybe see that there is a randomicity in measuring time,” says Bortolotti. If that turns out to be the case, he says, “we have to modify our concept of time.” Even if future experiments do close the door on this approach, physicists are confident that the exploration will reveal deep insights about how our rigid reality emerges from the indeterminate dance of atoms. “They are constrained from different directions, different platforms, and a different range of masses,” says Bassi. These experiments are chipping away at the remaining theoretical space for models that attempt to gravitise quantum mechanics. “Either they together shrink it to zero, and that’s the end. Or they will find something.” Topics: quantum gravity / gravity / quantum physics / quantum
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The daring idea that time is an illusion and how we could prove it The way time ticks forward in our universe has long stumped physicists. Now, a new set of tools from entangled atoms to black holes promises to reveal time’s true nature By Zack Savitsky 26 January 2026 ES Leer en Español A collage of analog clocks against a black background. Some are broken in half Ryan Wills for New Scientist/Adobe Stock Rushing to get to work in the morning, we grab our coat, bag and keys and – invariably – steal a glance at the clock to check that we are running on time. The passing of time is so integral to our day-to-day lives that we can’t afford to ignore it from one hour to the next. So far, so completely obvious. Yet if we pause to ask what physics has to say about why time flows at all, we find it struggles. Albert Einstein’s ideas warped time, quantum theory barely considers it, and no other facet of modern physics can satisfactorily explain it. “It’s one of the biggest mysteries of science,” says Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford. Now, though, one of the most audacious proposals for how time really works is getting a second look. Back in the 1980s, physicists sketched out the hypothesis that time is an illusion, conjured from an essentially timeless universe by the strange workings of quantum mechanics. Back then, this idea, known as the Page-Wootters mechanism, impressed many – but it was beyond any experimental test. Forty years later, however, new research into the working of clocks is showing how we might finally probe this elegant proposal and revealing the mysterious role that black holes may play in the ticking of time. Read more Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy? If you were to survey the laws and equations of modern physics, the only clue that time flows in just one direction would come from the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy, a measure of disorder, tends to increase. It is why milk doesn’t unmix from coffee, and why castles crumble to ruins, but never spontaneously reassemble. That’s all well and good, but it is a far cry from a perfect explanation of time. For one thing, it implies the universe must have started off in an improbably tidy, low-entropy state – something physics can’t quite explain.
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