Please do not publish my name as I am a teenager. I was appalled by an ad placed in The Jewish Link in last week’s edition. The ad was for a Chanukah concert by the organization JQY. The event was starring Leah Forster and Shlock Rock. According to Wikipedia, “JQY (or Jewish Queer Youth) is a New York-based nonprofit organization that supports and empowers LGBTQ youth with a focus on those from Orthodox, Chassidic, and Sephardic/Mizrahi homes.” This idea is not Jewish at all and does not belong in a Jewish newspaper.

Being outwardly LGBTQ is against the Torah and its true values. Yet this organization, which claims to be a “Jewish” organization, empowers youth to be proud of their sins. Furthermore, the organization chose to invite a host who grew up in the ultra-Orthodox community and left to become a lesbian and now is not a practicing Jew. (Is this whom we would want to speak to our LGBT children in the first place?) I am also quite shocked that Shlock Rock, a kosher form of entertainment, chose to accept and endorse something clearly against the Torah. Although understandably, times change, and we as Orthodox Jews need to go with the flow of the times, the Torah does not change, and we must stand firm for what we believe in … authentic Torah Judaism.