New York
Yeshiva University Recognizes L.G.B.T.Q. Club After Lengthy Battle
Yeshiva University said on Thursday that it would recognize an L.G.B.T.Q. student club on campus, bringing to an end a bitter yearslong legal battle over whether the school could deny the group official recognition on religious grounds.
Yeshiva, a Modern Orthodox Jewish institution with campuses in Manhattan and the Bronx, had refused for years to recognize the club, which had been known as the Yeshiva University Pride Alliance. The case made its way through state and federal courts, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, and was closely watched by religious organizations and religious freedom groups.
But on Thursday, its administration said in a statement that it and the students had “reached an agreement, and the litigation is ending.” As part of the settlement, the students said the Pride Alliance would be renamed Hareni, a religious term they had suggested.
In a statement, the school said the club “will seek to support L.G.B.T.Q. students and their allies and will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis.”
It added: “The club will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture.”
The battle at Yeshiva University had brought one of the country’s most liberal cities to the front line of a nationwide debate over religious freedom and civil rights and whether houses of worship, religiously affiliated organizations or even pious individuals could be compelled to provide public accommodations to people with differing views.
Yeshiva’s decision came at a time when L.G.B.T.Q. rights appear under threat across the country from the Trump administration, which has fiercely attacked elite universities and mounted a campaign against the participation of transgender people, in particular, in public life.
Throughout years of legal wrangling, the school took sometimes extreme steps to deny the club official recognition, including imposing a brief ban on all on-campus clubs. The dispute drew the attention of state lawmakers, who criticized the university’s position and suggested it might have imperiled its ability to access public funds.
The announcement on Thursday represented a notable reversal for Yeshiva, which did not explain why it decided to change its approach.
In a statement, Hanan Eisenman, a university spokesman, said that the students who filed the lawsuit had actually agreed to a proposal Yeshiva made in 2022, when administrators surprised the students by forming a club “grounded” in Jewish religious law that they called “an approved traditional Orthodox alternative to YU Pride Alliance.”
“Our students’ well-being is always our primary concern,” he said. “We are pleased that our current undergraduate students will be leading the club announced today which is the same club approved by our senior rabbis two and a half years ago.”
But Zak Sawyer, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the settlement went far beyond what Yeshiva proposed in 2022, which he said “was created without student input, had no members, held no events and never existed outside of a press release.”
“Hareni has secured written guarantees ensuring it has the same rights and privileges as other student clubs, including access to campus spaces, official student event calendars and the ability to use ‘L.G.B.T.Q.’ in its public materials — none of which existed under YU’s prior ‘initiative,’” he said.
In interviews, members of the new club said they hoped the settlement would ensure that L.G.B.T.Q. students felt valued.
“I think this will really show to other people that there is no separation between being queer and being a Jew and that you are allowed to be a queer Jew on campus at Yeshiva University,” said Hayley Goldberg, 21, one of the club’s co-presidents.
Indeed, Ms. Goldberg and Schneur Friedman, 22, another co-president, said the club’s new name emphasized the importance of Judaism in their lives.
It was taken from a phrase recited before prayer, which they thought had special meaning for L.G.B.T.Q. acceptance: “I hereby take upon myself to fulfill the commandment of loving your fellow as yourself.”
The university’s administration had for years rejected student demands to recognize an L.G.B.T.Q. club because it said doing so would conflict with Orthodox Jewish religious teaching. While many Jewish congregations support L.G.B.T.Q. rights, many Orthodox leaders interpret the Torah as promoting traditional ideas of gender and sexuality.
After a group of students and alumni sued Yeshiva in 2021, its administration argued in court that its refusal was legally protected because it was exempt from New York’s civil rights laws as a Jewish religious institution.
Religious exemptions to such laws are common, but in recent years have increasingly been used to deny equal treatment to L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Yeshiva is structured as a modern American university with graduate programs in law and business that enroll many non-Jewish students. The university is home to roughly 6,000 students on four campuses in Manhattan and the Bronx.
Critics of the school’s legal argument that it was a religious institution said Yeshiva had more in common with religiously affiliated colleges and universities, like Fordham or Notre Dame, than it did with Christian seminaries, which are exempt from nondiscrimination laws because they train priests.
Judges in New York rejected the university’s religious freedom arguments, which led the school to file an unusual emergency stay to the Supreme Court in 2022. The court ruled in a 5- to-4 decision that Yeshiva must abide by lower court rulings and pursue any challenges in state court before it appealed to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Friedman said the university had approved a number of events that the club could host, including movie nights, panel discussions and holiday events.
But it declined to specify what sort of activities might not be approved. Still, Mr. Friedman described Thursday’s agreement as “a massive step.”
“The fact that this is happening very much within the guidelines of Yeshiva is significant,” said Mr. Friedman.
“If this can happen here, it has wider implication for the Orthodox Jewish community as a whole,” he said. “Even if there are compromises, it has a wide effect, which is very exciting.”
new video loaded: Historic Brooklyn Church Destroyed in Fire
By Meg Felling
June 22, 2026
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Maruf Abubakari Sadick left Ghana for New York in April 2023, confident he was prepared for chilly weather.
When he arrived that morning, the temperatures were in the 50s. He might as well have arrived during a snowstorm.
“‘It’s really cold,’” he told his brother, who laughed and reminded him it wasn’t even winter. His brother brought him a warm jacket, sparking a love affair with outerwear, as well as clothes and colognes.
Three years later, these are the little luxuries on which Mr. Sadick splurges when he is not working two jobs as a security officer in the city.
“I really like to look good, and I like to smell good,” Mr. Sadick, 37, said. “I just tell myself ‘I work too hard. It’s self care.’”
Together, his security jobs bring in close to $46,000 a year, which pays for rent, remittances to his family in Ghana, Wi-Fi, his phone bill and groceries. At the end of the month, he squirrels away what he can so he can one day pay for nursing school.
His rent is $700 a month, which affords him a room in a four-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the East Bronx that he shares with two other men and one woman.
“Funny enough, we don’t have a schedule for the bathroom,” Mr. Sadick said. “It’s not easy.”
He buys a 30-pound bag of rice for $30 from the nearby bodega that lasts him about three months and a 40-pack of Poland Spring water for $20 so he can bring a bottle to work.
The housemates often share food, usually fish stews and okra soups that Mr. Sadick pours into a thermos, along with the rice, which he then takes to work. It helps him avoid paying for takeout which can cost more than $20.
Mr. Sadick said he learned quickly that to survive in New York, you need to share.
Two Jobs, Little Sleep
Mr. Sadick makes $17 an hour at both jobs, earning the current minimum wage in the city. By next year, he could be making at least $22.20 an hour, with two weeks of paid vacation and paid holidays.
The bump in pay is part of the Aland Etienne Safety and Security Act, a city law that Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed shortly after he took office that set a minimum wage for security guards. The law, which also requires employers to contribute to paid time off and health benefits, was named after the security officer who was fatally shot in July 2025 at 345 Park Avenue by a gunman who killed three others before killing himself.
Mr. Sadick did not know Mr. Etienne, but he said his death terrified him and other security officers, who realized how vulnerable they were at work.
The job “seems easy,” he said. “It seems quiet. Then, one moment, it’s all chaos.”
From Tuesday to Friday he works a four to eight-hour shift when he guards a sprawling office complex in Long Island City, Queens.
On weekends, he guards a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in East Harlem from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. When his shift ends, he takes the subway for a 40-minute commute back to the office complex in Queens, where he works 12-hour overnight shifts on Saturday and Sunday.
Three days a week he takes GED classes in the morning, which are free to state residents. Mondays are his one day off, which he uses “to make up for the two days that I don’t sleep,” Mr. Sadick said.
During the summers, when school is not in session, he tries to make some money selling bus tours to tourists around Times Square. On a good day, he will make $250 to $500 in commissions. On bad days, he will spend five hours in the heat with nothing to show for it.
He said he was exhausted, but driven to pursue a career in medicine.
“I like to take care of people,” he said.
Sending Help Home
A big part of Mr. Sadick’s salary goes to his family in Ghana. On average, he will send $500 a month to help pay for his parents’ food, his grandmother’s health aide and his sister’s schooling.
Last month, he sent a $1,200 so that his parents could buy two sheep. He sent the money through Taptap Send, an app that lets people send money to countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The sheep should provide enough meat to last them a couple of months, he said. His brother sent over $2,000 around the same time so that their extended family could buy a bull.
Sending money home is “expected,” Mr. Sadick said, adding that he feels “very good” about being able to help.
“We are brought up in a system where it’s all about family,” he said. “You are brought up to provide.”
Self-Care Is Worth the Splurge
When Mr. Sadick has extra money in his pocket, he will pop into Zara or Macy’s, where he shops for shoes, jackets and button-down shirts.
He has six bottles of cologne. His favorites are Al Rehab Lord Eau De Parfum and Mountain Woody Forest from Zara. The Al Rehab cologne, which sells for $10.95 an ounce on Amazon, is for daytime. He saves the Mountain Woody Forest — $74.99 on Amazon — for special occasions.
He owns 18 pairs of shoes, including red and white Air Jordans that he bought for $200 and a pair of brown, suede boots from Zara that cost $100.
“These are my favorites,” he said, stroking the soft Zara boots. “I look a bit professional in them.”
He is still trying to figure out what he will do when his salary goes up.
Most likely, he said he would keep working both jobs so that he could save more money. But he daydreams about quitting one of them.
It would be nice, Mr. Sadick said, to get more sleep, have time to play soccer and visit art museums.
What he would really like is more time to take long walks.
One of his favorite places to walk is Dumbo, where he worked briefly guarding a construction site and fell in love with the sweeping views of Manhattan and the cool breeze that comes off the water.
A place in Dumbo, he said, would be the ultimate indulgence.
“That would be a dream come true,” Mr. Sadick said. “It’s so nice there.”
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
new video loaded: Fans Show Up to the Parade in Their Best Knicks-Themed Attire
transcript
transcript
Fans Show Up to the Parade in Their Best Knicks-Themed Attire
New York Knicks fans showed up in droves to a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan in their best orange and blue outfits to honor the N.B.A champions.
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“Patrick Ewing. He didn’t get a ring. But I wear your sneakers, bro. When I was in high school, back in the ’90s, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, they were the team that I rooted for in the ’90s. They didn’t make it. So as a tribute to him because this is where I started at being a fan, Patrick Ewing. Knicks hat in denim — I’m a denim fanatic. So I love denim — Knicks hat. And yeah, that’s it.” “This is my style. I usually dress like this every day. But I did a special Knicks edition. It’s all really fun. I start with my makeup. I did really cute flames on my eyes because the Knicks are fire. I don’t really know what I’m going to do before I put it on. I just figure it out along the way. Like, this is a piece of fabric and I just layer in stuff.” “This is from my online boutique and the hat I just bought on the way to the parade because I wanted to match the jumpsuit, and that’s how I came up with the outfit.” “She was ready to go, man.” “Can you show your fingernail?” “She’s been sleeping in her Jalen Brunson jersey for the last 10 weeks. We’ve been watching all the games. You want to tell them who’s your favorite player?” “Jalen Brunson.” “I’m pretty sure this jersey was actually made for a human baby. But they’re selling them around the block. And we threw it on Chester and everyone started clapping. So — he wears it well.” “Blue and orange.” “So I did blue and orange.” “It had to be orange and blue. “Orange and blue. Orange and blue.”
By Meg Felling, Jeremy Raff, Ang Li and David Cheung
June 18, 2026
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