{"id":76752,"date":"2015-10-12T09:58:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T17:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76752"},"modified":"2015-10-12T09:58:37","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T17:58:37","slug":"oy-vey-y-love-is-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=76752","title":{"rendered":"Oy Vey, Y-Love is Gay"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Heeb magazine, May 2012<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a busy month in gay news: Obama and Biden support marriage equality, John Travolta supports<\/a> happy endings, Bravo\u2019s Andy Cohen is finally looking<\/a> for a boyfriend, and now (sit down girls), Y-Love, the only African-American hasidic Jewish hip hop artist comes out as gay. <\/p>\n

In an Out.com exclusive interview<\/a>, Y-Love, nee Yitz Jordan, tells the gay magazine he \u201cwanted to tell the world that he\u2019s [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.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jordan converted to Hasidic Judaism in 2000, attended Jerusalem\u2019s 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\u2019s 2006 Jewish Music Awards. <\/p>\n

While Y-Love has now gone down the path of Matisyahu and identifies as ex-Hasidic, it\u2019s fascinating that Jordan lived a Hasidic lifestyle, even marrying a woman \u2013 all by choice, knowing he was gay. I can forgive marrying a woman, but chareidi-misery by choice? That\u2019s unforgivable. <\/p>\n

With Y-Love now focusing on finding his man-basherte, and the release of his new single \u201cFocus on the Flair<\/a>\u201d where he can be seen in drag and vogueing, we\u2019re 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<\/a> out there on teaching ex-Orthos how to date in New York! <\/p>\n