It’s been a busy month in gay news: Obama and Biden support marriage equality, John Travolta supports happy endings, Bravo’s Andy Cohen is finally looking for a boyfriend, and now (sit down girls), Y-Love, the only African-American hasidic Jewish hip hop artist comes out as gay.
In an Out.com exclusive interview, Y-Love, nee Yitz Jordan, tells the gay magazine he “wanted to tell the world that he’s [been] gay for some time, but he was concerned that his ‘public reputation’ would be tarnished and the music career he has fought so hard to carve out in a seemingly intolerant community would be ruined.”
Jordan converted to Hasidic Judaism in 2000, attended Jerusalem’s fundamentalist Ohr Somayach Yeshiva, married a woman for a brief time and lived an ultra-orthodox lifestyle while becoming a rising star in the hip hop community, even winning an award for Best Hop Hop artist at Heeb’s 2006 Jewish Music Awards.
While Y-Love has now gone down the path of Matisyahu and identifies as ex-Hasidic, it’s fascinating that Jordan lived a Hasidic lifestyle, even marrying a woman – all by choice, knowing he was gay. I can forgive marrying a woman, but chareidi-misery by choice? That’s unforgivable.
With Y-Love now focusing on finding his man-basherte, and the release of his new single “Focus on the Flair” where he can be seen in drag and vogueing, we’re curious to see how his religious Jewish audience will respond to his coming out. Time will tell, in the meanwhile, we offer Y-Love much mazel in this new journey and remember there are resources out there on teaching ex-Orthos how to date in New York!
