I’m a proud gay Jew who was rejected by the LGBT+ community

In my late teens I became more religious. I started to keep kosher, I went to shul and I studied at a yeshivah in Jerusalem in between my semesters at a British university. Deep down, I think I knew I was gay but because the thought terrified me so much I told myself if I became an observant Jew and married a woman, my problem, as I saw it, would be magically solved.

In the event, that did not happen, I am happy to say. Instead, I came out and renounced my religious identity to make room for the new real me.

Until then, my activism had been a mix of political and Jewish causes. In my early teens I had set up a recycling scheme at my local youth centre, organised charity events at shul and given a​ school assembly on the genocide in Darfur. I even arranged a coach from Manchester, where I am from, to London so my friends could join me in protesting against the massacres in Sudan.  But once I came out, I ploughed my energy into gay causes.

My main areas of activism were banning conversion therapy, allowing gay men to donate blood and supporting LGBT+ people from religious backgrounds. I went on countless marches and even appeared on national news brandishing an especially colourful banner outside Downing Street. I joined a support group for LGBT+ people from different religious backgrounds and heard some harrowing stories. And I wrote and produced a short film about two young Jewish men in a secret relationship that was based on my own experiences and which explored the complexities of balancing both my sexual identity with my religious one.