"At the first meeting, a religious and kind man sat across from us, but he lacked any therapeutic credentials" - testimony of Yochai Greenfeld

I was four years old when the Gulf War broke out; the entire country was rushed into sealed rooms for fear of the use of chemical weapons. Family legend has it that I refused to put on a protective mask until they let me wear my mother's high heels. I didn't know I was gay at that age, but I knew what felt safe to me. When puberty arrived and I studied in a high school yeshiva, passions flared up around me; all the boys touched each other. Still, I felt that I had a different motivation for this touch, and after a few experiences that were not ambiguous, I began to understand what I was doing and what it said about me. They started spreading rumors about me and spray-painting homo on my locker, and it made it clear to me that this identity had a price tag that I couldn't afford - I had to change.

Written by: Gil Friedman

When I went home on weekends, I pursued relationships with women, deliberately planning my way into their bodies and hearts. Every so often, I met an anonymous man in a public park, filled with self-disgust and convincing myself once again that I wasn’t really gay.

I graduated from high school hoping to start over socially. I told my parents that I was attracted to men and that I needed help to change that. They embraced me, wanting what they believed was best for me, and found Etzat Nefesh, an organization that offers counseling and guidance to people struggling with sexual identity.

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At our first meeting, a kind, religious man sat across from us. He had no therapeutic training or professional qualifications. He explained that the goal of the meetings was to acquire tools to cope with attraction to men, to cultivate attraction to women, and ultimately to get married and start a family. At the time, there was no accessible, objective information or professional warning against conversion therapy. He told us exactly what we wanted to hear—so my parents opened their wallets, I opened my heart, and the conversion therapy began.

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The meetings took place once a week. I learned to turn feelings toward men into thoughts, and then to reject those thoughts using rational arguments. We broke down concepts like masculinity and sexuality into components. I was also given homework: to spit in the street, swear while walking down the road, or repeat to myself dozens of times a day that I was a man—all meant to help me develop a tough, masculine self-image. We worked on cultivating romantic thoughts about girls from my high school or from Bnei Akiva, and on developing sexual fantasies about them.

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In reality, my sexual attraction did not change. I pretended to be making progress, and at the same time I avoided sexual experiences with men I knew, out of fear that they might out me or discover that I was trying to change. The only way left for me to explore my sexual curiosity toward men was in public parks, in complete anonymity and under cover of darkness. These encounters were wild and sometimes dangerous. After each one, I would confess to my therapist, describing how disgusted I felt with myself. He encouraged that disgust, claiming it proved that I was not truly attracted to men.

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After three years without any change, my therapist said I needed something stronger than individual therapy. He suggested I join the Journey to Masculinity workshop run by Etzat Nefesh, which he himself led and administered. The workshop included personal and group empowerment exercises, lectures about the supposed causes of homosexuality, and the presentation of a “detoxification” program based on suppressing sexual urges and enforcing straight behavior.

The climax of the workshop was a psychodrama exercise. Each participant shared an early memory connected to homosexuality, and the entire group reenacted it like a play. Together, we relived past events in an attempt to change their outcomes and awaken a so-called corrective emotional experience.

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When it was my turn, I told a story involving high heels and the Gulf War. My therapist tied my hands behind my back, wrapped a rope around my waist, and instructed the participants to pull me in all directions. After several minutes, he told them to cover me with blankets and mattresses while they laughed at me and cursed me. I begged him to stop, but he laughed and told the group to continue until I was on the verge of collapse. Only then did he stop the exercise and declare it a success.

I was shocked and flooded with adrenaline. I couldn’t understand the connection between the story I had shared and what I had just experienced. Still, the feeling that I had been broken filled me with hope—that now I could rebuild myself, and that this experience would finally erase my attraction to men.

A few weeks later, I was back in individual therapy, sitting across from the same therapist and telling him that nothing had changed. He insisted that the workshop experience would have a deep impact that would only reveal itself over time. But I had lost trust in him, and our meetings became less frequent.

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A few months later, I graduated from high school and stopped attending the sessions altogether. Still, I was determined to complete the process on my own, and the conversion therapy continued inside my head. During my studies at yeshiva, I lived behind a mask. Everyone saw me as happy and colorful. No one suspected anything when I joined conversations about dates and failed romances with girls from the nearby seminary. Inside, I struggled not to see my friends as sexual objects.

In the army, I continued hiding behind the mask—carefully avoiding the culture of shared showers, and presenting myself as an overly affectionate guy to explain the absence of sexual tension with women. When I went home on weekends, I pursued relationships with women, deliberately planning my way into their bodies and hearts. Every so often, I met an anonymous man in a public park, filled with self-disgust and convincing myself once again that I wasn’t really gay.

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From the outside, my life looked perfect. I was an officer, I dated attractive women, I had many friends, and I appeared confident and successful. But behind the mask, I was slowly withering away. I watched my friends fall in love, get married, start families—and even come out of the closet. Meanwhile, my cycle of straight-by-day and gay-by-night continued, and the growing gap between who I was and who I pretended to be tore me apart.

I eventually understood that conversion therapy led nowhere, and I wanted to turn back—but I didn’t know how. I was ready to come out, but I had no idea where to begin.

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I sought help and found a therapist with professional credentials and no ideological agenda. Together, we began to navigate my way back to life. I went through a period of bisexuality, which allowed me to give men an equal romantic chance and to experience what it was like to meet a man outside a public park, without a pseudonym. At the same time, I slowly began coming out to the people closest to me. As the secrecy eased, the pressure lifted. I grew more comfortable with myself, and gradually, my life began to take shape again—along with new aspirations and dreams.ate felt less like a real connection and more like being observed in an experiment. I was no longer interested in figuring out exactly where I fell on some sexuality scale. I felt more natural and happier with a man, and that was enough. I allowed myself to say: I am gay—and to stop worrying about my sexuality all the time.

In the end, what I wanted was love, a relationship, and a family. I realized that I was living in the best period in human history to be gay: a time when I could be myself, get married, build a family, and even remain part of a religious community.

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People say that after coming out of the closet, life keeps getting better. In my case, that turned out to be true. The dream of being straight gave way to new dreams. The formulas for “conversion” that once filled my mind were replaced by learning and creativity—and instead of playing a role, I began to live honestly.

I began acting on stage. My new dreams grew quickly and gave my life fresh momentum. I graduated with honors, learned to dance, and performed in “Suburb Story” at the Cameri Theater and in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway.

Relationships are still difficult for me. My heart is constantly beating and searching for love, like a phone searching for reception in the middle of the desert. But anyone who sees themselves as having come out of Egypt knows that before entering the Promised Land, there is time spent in the desert. When I look back at everything I’ve been through, I feel optimistic that love and partnership will come too.

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When you decide to undergo conversion therapy, you begin to associate who you are with self-hatred and worthlessness. As long as you fail to change, you may blame yourself and experience your suffering as punishment for something you deserve. Organizations that offer conversion therapy are often run by men who have gone through—or are still going through—the same process themselves. Some have sexual relationships with patients, whether consensual or coerced, and all are complicit in what I believe is one of the greatest frauds ever committed within the religious community.

My therapist systematically had sexual relations with patients, against their will, and was eventually brought to trial and sentenced to just three years in prison. I spent five years in therapy with him. Another five years I continued conversion therapy inside my own head. It took me five more years to begin speaking about what had happened, and it will take many more years to repair the damage I sustained along the way.

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The desire to change one’s sexual orientation usually comes from a deep wish to belong to the community and not be cast out—and that desire is human and understandable. Discussions about identity, choice, and the meaning of sexual orientation can be legitimate. But conversion therapy itself is a mistake: wasted money, wasted years, and time that will never be returned.