Shay Bramson is an Israeli LGBTQ rights activist, born into a very right-wing, religious community. At age 13, Shay sought out conversion therapy for himself, an attempt to bring harmony to his apparent sexual orientation and deep religious convictions. He has founded the Center for Combating Conversion Therapy, the first of its kind in Israel, and centers much of activism around creating better realities for LGBTQ religious Jews in Israel.
In 1987, Shay Bramson was born into a very religious, very conservative mixed Mizrahi-Ashkenazi Jewish family in Netanya, Israel. His mother’s family came from Morocco: her mother came during World War I, and her father came around 1960, fleeing oppression from the Moroccan government. His dad was born in Israel, with a family originally from what was then known as Prussia. His father passed away when Shay was 5 years old, and it was in his his community’s religious-cultural beliefs about death and souls that he found the clearest answers to his questions. A couple years later, his mother married a very religious, very right-wing Sephardi (Jews of Spanish descent) Orthodox man.
From a young age, he eagerly absorbed the religious, kabbalistic beliefs of his family and community. Shay described these beliefs, “There is a very political environment up there [in heaven], and we have the ability to affect things. If I did good actions, then I would elevate my father’s soul and bring him to a better place. I carried this responsibility everywhere.” From within this religious-communal context, he understood his life to take place amidst a grand, global battle between good and evil. Shay grew up believing that every action he committed had the power to tip the scales towards either good or evil— and the very continued existence of the world depended on it. He went through adolescence scrutinizing every thought and action to make sure he was fighting for the good side.
His sexual orientation began to make itself known to him from around age 8. Retrospectively, he understands that the intense, warm feeling he felt towards a classmate was a kind of gay love. In fifth grade, he was with his mother when he saw two non-religious guys chasing each other around the neighborhood, and one shouted, “yo, homo!” When Shay asked his mother, “What’s a homo?” she pulled back a little in fear. Their community did not say any bad words, including any negative descriptors or insults, for example, not even the Hebrew equivalent of “stupid.” His mother responded, “A man who is a homo is a very bad person.” Relieved, Shay thought, “Well good, it has nothing to do with me!”
The game changed when he moved to Yeshiva in 7th grade. There were no girls around there. He started his natural physical and sexual development, and soon it became very clear to him that he was attracted to boys. Since he looked around and saw men only marrying women, he assumed that this kind of sexual attraction happens to everyone and would be outgrown in due time. But he soon realized that this was something happening only to him, and it was connected to this very serious word of “homo.” He knew that this was something never to be talked about, and that it was something that God hated. Shay wanted to be the best Jewish person he could be in order to bring the Messiah and cause redemption, but his attraction to boys meant something dark and terrible for his future. It could stop him from following the clear-cut path of being a good Jewish man.
So in 2003 at age 13, he decided to do something about his attractions. He could not just live with them. After a lesson on search engines in computer class, Shay snuck back into the computer room and searched “guys who are attracted to guys” on AltaVista, then the leading search engine. But because their Internet was heavily filtered of all religiously-inappropriate content, the first result showed Atzat Nefesh, an Israel-based Orthodox Jewish conversion therapy agency that had just started a couple years back. The website boasted a 100% success rate for people with “opposite tendencies” from their program “The Road to Manhood,” and encouraged people to reach out to their number. A couple weeks later, Shay called the number from a public payphone. Shay begged the respondent to help him, but when the man asked for Shay’s age, the man backpedaled in alarm. They had never received a call from someone so young. They would not let him join their program. In desperation, Shay pleaded over and over again, “please, you have to help me!” and the man eventually agreed to refer him to a separate psychologist.
The therapist was around 80 years old at the time, a professor emeritus from one of Israel’s universities. He had the reputation of expertise, and in their town in Netanya, was considered more religiously moderate. The therapist emphasized that everything must be discrete and confidential, because it is illegal for him to see a minor without parental consent. Shay enthusiastically agreed to these terms— he, too, did not want anyone to find out about the reason for the visits. Shay continued seeing him for three years from ages 13-16, with a frequency ranging between once a week to once every three months. When after some time the therapist started asking for money, Shay would steal the 50 shekel fee (around $14 USD) from his mother’s purse.
The conversion therapy had three elements.
- Understand the source of his gayness. Shay did not understand why knowing the source of his gayness would help him change, but the therapist insisted on it. They explored possibilities such as exposure to girls’ toys, whether he wore dresses, and whether he played with girls in kindergarten, none of which were true. They also explored a theory that after his father died, his mother had to take on a greater masculinity, which confused Shay. Further, the therapist asked him to draw a family tree to check for other social deviances like criminality and addictions, because homosexuality was seen as related to all these things.
- Practical steps to change the nature of his attraction. The therapist wanted to get at what about boys Shay liked. He talked about male and female genitalia, and wanted Shay to draw with a pen what in the human penis he was attracted to. He also asked about masturbation habits. Shay was very ashamed to talk about these things, and he remembered wanting to melt into his armchair and disappear. Before this, Shay had no exposure to any sexual education. When the therapist asked, “What do you want to do with a boy you like?” Shay answered honestly, “I want to study Torah with him, hug him, maybe kiss him.” The therapist instead wanted him to watch porn, but Shay was alarmed and concerned that he would not be permitted to see such things under Jewish Law. After that session, the therapist came back with written approval from a rabbi, and handed Shay the floppy disk. It was horrible to look at and talk about. Whenever Shay noticed a fantasy or feeling of attraction towards other boys, the therapist wanted him to punish himself, to create a negative conditioning. Because the suggested electroshock bracelet would appear too odd in his yeshiva context, Shay came up with various punishments with an ascetic, religious bent to them. He would not leave his room, not watch TV, not go out with friends. He would wake up to pray at first light, the earliest permissible time for the morning prayer, which could be around 4 am. He would fast often—no food and no water— sometimes every Monday and Thursday, or during other religiously-significant weeks of the year. He would take vows of silence (known as a ta’anit dibur in Judaism) where his teachers and friends all understood that he would not speak any words unless it was prayer or about Torah.
- Verbal affirmations against homosexuality. Shay did not know any gay people, so he thought all the things that his therapist said was the truth, and that he had no hope for a future unless he continued with this therapy and changed. The therapist would repeat stuff like, “You can’t be both religious and gay,” “gay people are miserable,” “gays dance on trucks naked at the pride parade,” “gays have sex in parks,” “gay people all have AIDS and other nasty diseases,” “gay men have no real relationships with each other and only have meaningless sex because of their evil inclinations,” “most gay people are dying from AIDS or suicide,” “you cannot be that way,” “there’s no way you are one of them,” “you have no future if you choose that path.”
During this time, teachers and friends would comment on how righteous Shay was, how much of a good boy he was, so committed to spiritual practice. While people did ask what drew him to such rigorous practices as a young teenager, it did not really raise any alarm bells within his religious community. Shay was incredibly critical of himself. Jewish traditions offer instruction for how to behave in nearly every aspect of life. He obsessed over additional mystical or ascetic practices, making sure he cut his nails in the right order with proper focus, that he said 100 blessings and 90 “amen”s each day. If Shay remembered that he tied his shoes in the wrong order in the morning, he would retrace his steps and take the bus back home to redo it correctly. He was miserable, but he believed that he needed to do all of these things in order to counteract the evils of his sexuality.
Because Shay was a very good kid, his teachers and parents did not suspect him when he excused himself from yeshiva or home to go to therapy. But at age 15, he could not keep these secrets inside any longer— he felt like he was bursting. He brought his two closest friends to the most remote part of the yeshiva, and prefaced his confession with minutes of preparation until he was sure they were sworn to secrecy. He told them that he was attracted to boys and was trying very hard to change it. They reacted very well, and notably, many years later both of them came out of the closet separately— one at 23 and the other at 28.
The friends kept it secret for a while, but a few months later someone heard them talking about it and the issue exploded. Half of this class stopped talking to him, while many others actively sought to harass him, calling him “Shay homo!” Classmates would cut out gay classified ads from the newspaper and put it in his bag, on his desk, and in his gemara (religious study book). This began to feel very dangerous to Shay, because he would be kicked out if his mother found out. The yeshiva set him up with and paid for a therapist, and told his mother that Shay had some problems, but the yeshiva was taking care of it. His relationships with his teachers began deteriorating, as they started acting weird around him. Eventually, at 16, the head of his yeshiva said he could not live there anymore.
Shay was so frustrated. He was going to be punished now for something that he did not want, could not control, and that he had been trying to change for the past three years. He was suffering very much, and nothing about his attraction changed. He confronted his therapist, saying that he had been working so hard to no avail. The therapist doubled down and emphasized still that this was the only path forward, that change was possible, and the only reason he was not changing was because he was not willing to.
Shay knew by then that nothing would work. His class in yeshiva started studying Talmud tractate Sanhedrin, which contains a teaching that requires a Jewish person to give up their life rather than transgress serious sexual prohibitions. He took that as a sign. He stopped praying for God to change him, and started instead asking God to end his life. He had no other gay role models, and could not see any future for himself. He wanted to end his life and join his father in the heavens. Those few weeks he saw all gray, only gray.
Shay had an unsuccessful suicide attempt, during which he fainted. He heard a voice coming from his body, a secular voice. It was the first secular voice he heard from within himself in his entire life— previously he would only talk to God, contemplate divine things. The voice said, “We are your body! Why are you doing this to us?!” He woke up and saved himself, stopping the bleeding with the torn sleeves of his shirt. He ran home, burned his bloody shirt on the gas stove and scattered the ashes, getting rid of all evidence. Many people in his environment thought very low of him, and he didn’t want them to find out and take away his autonomy. He did not leave his room for days after.
At 16, Shay let himself begin to seriously question many things about God and his religion. He didn’t understand how a benevolent God would let all of these things happen to him. He decided that since he could not change his sexuality, he would leave his religion. While externally he remained part of the community, internally saw himself as a heretic. For the next couple of years, Shay spent a lot of time taking care of himself, attending yeshiva less frequently with the approval of the heads of yeshiva. He made it to the final exams and passed with good marks.
When Shay was 18, a boy who had graduated from his yeshiva in the year above him told him that he, too, was gay, and invited him to different social groups. These groups met very discreetly, meeting in random places with instructions that contained no address. There, he met many graduates from the conversion therapy program “The Road to Manhood” that Shay had tried to get into at age 13.
While the rest of his graduating class served in the Israeli army in a program combining service with continued Torah studies, Shay enlisted into mainstream IDF service, and was assigned to the military police. His relationship with his mother and her husband was very bad, but she noticed that something was up and confronted him directly. He came out to her honestly. Shay explains, “She thought that gay people and pedophiles shared a common ancestor or something. She didn’t want me to physically touch my cousins and brothers.” He spent most of his years serving in the army sleeping at the base, away from home. There at the base, he stopped practicing any form of religion and nurtured deep anti-religious resentment. His service ended in August, 2009.
He found the Israel Gay Youth organization (IGY) and began to join their social activities and volunteer for them, which felt very good for him. There, he volunteered for their online warm line offering support to those in need, operated message boards, stepped up as a mentor for their youth-leadership group, and became a training program developer for new hires. He volunteered with IGY from 2007 - 2013.
On August 1st, 2009, a gunman entered Bar Noar, an LGBTQ center for youth-at-risk in Tel Aviv, killing two teens and wounding ten others.[1] Shay was nearby, only a fifteen-minute walk away at the time of the shooting. The news reporters then broadcasted on television photos where Shay is visible in the background. His mother’s husband saw Shay on television and kicked him out of the house. Shay went to live with his grandparents, his mother’s parents. While they were still sad that their grandson was both non-religious and gay, they stepped up to take care of him and became his parents-in-practice for the next decade.
With his grandparents’ support, Shay enrolled in Tel Aviv University when he was 21, in 2009. He quickly integrated into the academic community, applying himself towards his biology degree. Friends and mentors within the gay community with whom he volunteered at IGY helped him find a job, a place to live, fellowships, and scholarships. Also during this time, he found his first serious boyfriend. The boyfriend was also ex-religious, and the two had become each other's family for the next five years.
In the meantime, he began to process everything that he’d been through and begin healing. It felt too heavy to carry such anti-religious anger and sadness. He realized that within his identity “ex-religious,” was also the word “religious.” His home community and upbringing would always remain a part of his story. He also began to meet religious gay people who were accepted by their rabbis, yeshivas, and home communities! Seeing the way that others were not forced to choose between their core identities, Shay decided that he could build back the components of religiosity that felt good for him. Today in 2024, he prays with tefillin (phylacteries) every day and usually spends shabbat (sabbath) with his religious friends, going to services and and enjoying meals together.
Shay completed his bachelor of arts degree in biology 2011, and enrolled in a master’s program in genetics from 2011 - 2013. From 2014 - 2020, Shay was working towards his Ph.D. in genetics, which remains unfinished. Throughout his time in academia, he was conducting lab research and teaching genetics in the university setting. In 2014, with a few friends, Shay established the Achva, the Israeli LGBTQ students association. In 2016, he became the manager for a year. At Achva, they ran student events, established international student exchange programs, and secured scholarships for their student leaders. He also was elected president of the students’ union at Tel Aviv University. Also during this time, he became involved with the Aguda, the association for LGBTQ equality in Israel. There he was lobbying and writing policy papers, organizing coalitions between political groups, and increasing the group’s connection overall with both other groups and the government. In 2017, he was elected as a board member of the Aguda. There and at Achva, he began focusing on the fight against conversion therapy.
Shay speaking out against the harms of conversion therapy at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. March 1st, 2022.
When in 2007, a friend who had been through conversion therapy committed suicide, Shay knew he had to do something about it. He understood that many others like him had been through religious conversion therapy, and many were encouraged to take psychiatric medication to suppress their homosexuality. When conversion therapy became banned in the US, some members of the conversion therapy group Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) moved to Israel, where the group is still active in 2024.
Havruta community photo in front of the Chief Rabbi offices, Jerusalem Pride parade 2024. Shay Bramson is in the front row, sixth person from the right.
In 2018, he helped bring to Israel screenings of the film Boy Erased, a drama about conversion therapy that Shay felt was quite true to reality. A young religious gay man whom he mentored— then the chairperson of Havruta, an organization that serves religious and ex-religious LGBTQ Jewish Israelis—suggested that he bring the screenings to Havruta since most victims of conversion therapy are religious. In 2019, Shay was elected as the next chairperson of Havruta. Under his leadership, Havruta’s reach greatly expanded. Their budget expanded over a hundred-fold from what it was. They now have social groups all over the country, and organize shabbat get-togethers and other educational programs for participants.
In 2020, under Shay’s leadership, Havruta partnered with the Gay Center of Tel Aviv-Yafo to establish the Center for Combating Conversion Therapy, the first of its kind in the country. The organization does educational outreach, publishes reliable information and data on the subject, legally represents those harmed by it, and lobbies within the judicial system to ban its practice. Many bills which they have authored have been sent up to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. While 2021 saw a preliminary vote to ban the practice for minors, discussions fizzled out with the dissolution of the then-current parliamentary coalitions. In 2022, Israel’s Health Ministry banned conversion therapy as a medical practice, in a landmark decision that both would allow the revocation of medical licenses and provide greater legal standing for malpractice lawsuits.[2] However, as of 2024, Israel has no legislation against conversion therapy for non-medical practitioners, and this is what the Center for Combating Conversion Therapy is fighting to change.
Shay Bramson speaking at the Israel Ministry of Health press conference, when they announced their ban on conversion therapy in February, 2022.
Shay Bramson lives in Tel Aviv with friends and family, and in addition to his activism, works full-time as a data scientist.
[1] Boudreaux, “Gunman Attacks Center for Gay Teens in Israel, Killing Three.”
[2] Efrati, “Israel’s Health Ministry Bans LGBTQ ‘Conversion Therapy.’”
(This biographical statement was written by Charlie Feuerman and edited by Shay Bramson, based on an interview taken June 16, 2024 and the sources below.)
Biography Date: July 2024