Yeshiva blesses gay couple — by mistake

An Israeli religious institution accidentally extended a hearty mazel tov to a gay couple on their nuptials this week, apparently confused by the unisex nature of one of the grooms’ names.

The national-religious Ma’ale Gilboa yeshiva quickly rescinded the public congratulations for a former graduate and his male fiance on their recent engagement, saying a mistake had been made by a student.

The yeshiva, located next to the northern city of Beit She’an, posted a statement on its website this week in a section dedicated to public notices: “Congratulations to Uri Erman on his engagement to Daniel Jonas.”

According to the news site NRG, Erman was a former student at the institute and Jonas is a senior figure in the national-religious gay community who heads the gay religious organization Havruta.

“Without getting into nuances, since we got actually got married and not engaged, I take off my hat to them! It is really exciting to see something like this on an official website of a yeshiva,” Jonas wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

The yeshiva, however, retracted the message and asserted that the student in charge of editing the website had made an error: “This is a mistake; we thought [Daniel] was a woman rather than a man.”