During the filming of "Yes Man," the series I starred in, my mom and I went back to where I underwent conversion therapy.
We stood shivering with cold and fear at the entrance to the house of the rabbi, who tried to change me and on the way there almost killed me.
Embraced, with tears in their eyes, I asked her to come back after me verbatim: "I have a gay child, and I love him as he is."
This scene was not finally aired, but the process was done and it seemed to me that this stain was behind me.
And he really was behind me, until on Sunday this week I came to the play "The Love of My Soul" at the Habima Theater, which flooded me with everything again - as if 14 years had not passed.
The inner struggles, the fear of God, the conscience, the distress that does not go down from the heart, the moments when you feel an inch away from freaking out, the deep breaths and the longing that at least one close person will tell you that you are okay.
I never cried in a show, but this time I could not stop the tears.
I looked at Jonathan, played by the amazing actor Amit Rahav, and I saw myself.
I cringed in the chair as he slapped himself, remembering how I did exactly the same thing in front of the mirror every time I did an "forbidden" act, because the rabbi explained to me that it was better to accept the punishment in this world and not in the next.
There were moments when I imagined myself bursting out in the middle and yelling at his mother, played by Orly Zilbershtz, "What are you doing? This is your son!"
But I also saw her lack of knowledge in the proud world, the deep pain, and the shame and expectation of a miracle.
Orly's voice was heard in the hall, but I heard my mother.
A few months ago, I corresponded on Instagram with an ultra-Orthodox guy in his 20s, who is also deep in the closet.
He decided to write to me after watching an episode of "Yes Man" that dealt with conversion therapies.
He wrote from an anonymous profile and told me about his fears, and I tried to have a sympathetic ear.
Be for him this one I was looking for and did not have.
One morning he wrote to me that he had decided to "go for it."
I was sure he chose to live his life as they are and come out of the closet, but in the post after that I realized he had actually decided to go for conversion therapies.
My heart contracted.
Since then, and whenever this issue comes up, I think about it.
I do not know his name, and now I also have no face to imagine nor an anonymous Instagram to write to him and wait for him to answer.
The play directed by Moshe Kaftan and written by Segal shook me where I thought he was behind me, but at night I could not stop thinking about the ultra-Orthodox guy, about what he was going through.
I woke up this morning and wrote this text, but it's not a phenomenon that will end in 300 words in a newspaper.
Since the broadcast of "Yes Man" I have been increasingly exposed to conversion therapies.
This week, for example, I discovered in Guy Lerer's "The Pipe" program on the network 13 that similar treatments are also given to women who are attracted to girls of their gender.
This horrific phenomenon is not getting enough attention, neither in the media nor in enforcement.
This is a phenomenon that should disappear from the world, whoever is a part of it should be punished - and every day that passes is a disaster.
Erans@israelhayom.co.il
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