Book Reading and Discussion of “In This Day and Age?!” by Isaac Namdar, MD
Is it so incredible that one could be involuntarily outed and functionally excommunicated “In This Day And Age?!” Sad to say, it is not. The selfsame title of the book by Isaac Namdar, M.D. chronicles his own personal experience of this tragedy which ultimately and paradoxically created a positive movement of communication within his strict Orthodox community. After being outed against his will and publicly censured by his rabbi and expunged from the membership roster of his synagogue, Dr. Namdar opened up an internet message board for all who wished to comment to do so publicly. This medium provided a podium which ultimately touched many chords that resonated within his close knit and very orthodox community. And he compiled all of the resultant dialogue into an eminently readable book which poignantly traces one man’s movement through the conflicts of loyalty to close knit ethnic identity, spiritual identity and sexual identity. It also tells a story of an ethnic minority struggling to come to terms with itself, its culture and its religion in a pluralistic society.
Isaac Namdar and Andrew Mitchell were married in a civil ceremony on July 1, 2009 and celebrated their loving union with a party for family and friends that October. A wedding website was subsequently created to share the happy stories and photos of the wedding and honeymoon for their intimates to enjoy. Little did either suspect the furor soon to be aroused in Isaac’s Orthodox community when this website was ‘crashed’ and the contents of the website made public in January of that year. A man who sought only privacy and peace had been outed by a stranger, against his will, and his world and his family’s world was certainly never the same.
The book “In This Day And Age?!” is a compendium of the discourse among members of Dr. Namdar’s tightly interwoven religious/ethnic community, as they grappled with the issues of spirituality, identity, Jewish law and customs and the morality attached to the denial or acceptance of the individual’s right to pursue his/her own path versus the needs of a community desperately seeking cohesion. The issues brought up by the many respondents on the message board Dr Namdar maintained as a forum are diverse, fascinating and show a genuine striving to come to terms with homosexuality as organic to their population and not some phenomena infiltrating from the outside.
Throughout it all, Dr. Namdar behaves with ultimate equanimity, reasonableness and an honorable willingness to engage in dialogue without compromising himself or his commitments. As he states, his goal in establishing a discussion board was to educate as many people as possible about equity and tolerance and, by the overall tenor of his account, he succeeded (of course, bigots on the fringes will exist within any religious or social group).
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, spiritual leader of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah for nearly two decades, was the introductory speaker of the evening and moderator of the lively, open discussion that followed Dr. Namdar’s forthright presentation of his work. Renowned for her humanitarian outlook and unwillingness to back down in the face of controversy, Rabbi Kleinbaum’s presence gave evidence of New York’s Gay and Jewish work for dignity, equality and human rights for all.
CBST, not incidentally, is the largest LGBT synagogue in the world, and zealously pursues social action on all gay-related issues, including youth homelessness, health, aging and marriage equality as well as sponsoring an active transgender coalition. The synagogue’s “Strength Through Community” features guest videos by noteworthy members of the gay Jewish world who speak out against hate and bullying as well as directly addressing the epidemic of gay teen suicides.
Dr. Namdar’s book is available at amazon.com and makes for a lively and provocative read.
Written by Spencer Shear
