The scandalized organization, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), is hatching a new scheme. Its slick con artist, Arthur Abba Goldberg, and his shady sidekick, Elaine Silodor Berk, are sending lesbians to an exciting, new workshop — for a hefty fee of $795 — in hopes of making them lipstick ex-lesbians. (I’d love to know if they are getting kickbacks)
This workshop is one that will change your life and free up the core feminine inside of you to be all that you are meant to be….Celebration of Woman is Raw, it is Real and it will Rock your Soul.
The problem is, the ladies at the Celebration of Woman Workshop in San Rafael, CA appear to have no idea that they are in the business of converting lesbians. I called the organization to ask a few questions. An irascible woman became audibly upset and roared, “we don’t have any lesbians in our workshops.”
Won’t she be surprised when a legion of lesbians from JONAH coming through the door to find their inner-feminine self? I’d love to be there for that Kodak moment!
Either Celebration of Being US is lying and is working hand-in-hand with this “ex-gay” hate group, or JONAH is secretly attaching itself to an organization that is not familiar with its outrageous and offensive efforts to “cure” LGBT people.
Please contact Celebration of Being US and tell them that they should immediately get out of bed with JONAH.
Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day “Truth Academy”, that took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as “one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States.” The event was heavily promoted for weeks on right wing websites, such as World Net Daily, which had an article headlined, “Exposed: Gay Brainwashing of America’s Youth.”
On the eve of his hate seminar, LaBarbera got a gift from God. Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8, which prohibited marriage equality in California, was unconstitutional. Surely, a spontaneous outpouring of rage against this so-called “gay activist judge” would swell the ranks of angry conservatives at the Truth Academy.
My organization, Truth Wins Out, sent a “spy” to document what we expected – based on the hype — to be a large event. The thrust of the conference was to teach an army of young culture warriors how to beat back the gay agenda. These students would then return home equipped to turn back the clock on gay rights in their communities.
What we found, however, was an event that looked more like a poorly attended condo board meeting than a youthful resurgence of the anti-gay movement. The crowd vacillated between 20-30 people, who were considerably older than the “students” the conference claimed it was trying to reach. I’m not sure how LaBarbera plans to win his culture war, when he can’t even fill one buffoon platoon
“Since how we are born clearly does not justify all behaviors. For example, what if someone is born a gay basher? Instead of diverting our attention and focusing energy how homosexuals are made and born, wouldn’t it be more effective for us to instead concentrate on explaining why homosexual activity is wrong and explaining how homosexuals may be born is ultimately irrelevant?” LaBarbera asked during a panel discussion.
A few years ago, I dubbed LaBarbera “Porno Pete” because of his bizarre fascination with naughty gay magazines and his penchant to go “undercover” at leather events and photograph naked men. It seems the sodomy obsessed LaBarbera’s strategy is for anti-gay activists to talk explicitly about gay sex and why it is an unbecoming, immoral “behavior” that undermines society.
To bolster his argument, Porno Pete hosted a slew of professional gay bashers who would say just about anything to make LGBT people appear depraved. One Truth Academy lecturer was Greg Quinlan, the President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). This organization is particularly dangerous because it teams up with conservative legal organizations to threaten schools with lawsuits if they do not provide students with “ex-gay” propaganda.
“I was questioning the homosexual lifestyle. It looked like a dead end to me,” explained Quinlan. “It looked like something that was so ugly. Here we are, you go to the bar, you hook up, this back and forth stuff, it just seems so shallow. So lust filled, so immature. But I was there and too prideful to do anything about it. So I stayed there for a little while.”
Quinlan explained how he went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church who accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” the effete Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them,”
In the same vein as Quinlan, convicted felon and co-founder of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), Arthur Abba Goldberg, offered a few stereotypes of his own.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
Of course, an anti-gay seminar would not be complete without the old canards tying LGBT people to communists and child molesters.
“It’s consensual (sex with minors) if you don’t believe in the age of consent, which they don’t,” said Accuracy in the Media’s Cliff Kincaid. “This is the mentality of the Marxists who are a significant component and work with elements of the gay rights movement.”
Even as these anti-gay activists were harkening back to smears of the past, key conservatives were stepping into the future. Decidedly non-Marxist, Ted Olson, was defending marriage equality on national TV and the gay conservative organization GOProud announced that commentator Ann Coulter would keynote the group’s annual event.
This broad societal shift towards acceptance is the hard truth that those at the “Truth Academy” aren’t willing to acknowledge and certainly don’t seem prepared to handle.
Convicted felon Arthur Abba Goldberg spoke at Peter LaBarbera’s poorly attended Truth Academy on Thursday. His speech is exactly what one would expect from an individual of low moral character and a penchant for extreme dishonest behavior.
He began his talk answering whether “gays can change”, in which he flippantly replied “the simple answer is yes”, to the delight of the small crowd of under 30 people. Then he rhetorically asked, “is gay parenting good for kids?” Abba Goldberg bluntly replied “no”.
In one of the more outrageous parts of his speech, Abba Goldberg made the bizarre claim that allowing consensual sex for LGBT people will lead to a “slippery slope” that will descend into bestiality.
“What do you do when you want to french kiss a dog?” asks Abba Goldberg. “Bark once if ‘yes’, and bark twice if ‘no’? Hello…where do we get this idea of consent from?”
The fact that Abba Goldberg even had these wacky ideas as part of his presentation shows that he has more issues than a New York magazine stand. What kind of psychologically healthy person even dreams up these scenarios? Perhaps, this speech explains why Abba Goldberg sees nothing perverse about referring clients to therapists who get clients naked and have them touch their genitals in front of a mirror.
Predictably, the con artist reverts to conspiracy theories and paranoia, falsely claiming that people of faith are victims of all-powerful gay activists who make the faithful afraid to speak out.
“The problem is that most people, particularly people of faith, fear being open,” said Abba Goldberg. “A fear of speaking to a matter of true diversity, of free speech. We really actually have viewpoint discrimination and outright manipulation.”
It always amazes me how these dolts claim they are oppressed and lack free speech – even as the are engaged in the act of free speech. They speak to their brainwashed followers, the media, and anyone who will listen. Yet, they seem to think they are somehow muzzled, simply because most Americans reject what they are shoveling.
Abba Goldberg goes on to distort the debunked Masters & Johnson study on homosexuality, where Virgina Johnson admits the results were fabricated. This was widely reported in the news last year, yet Abba Goldberg still used this study to support his ideology. This either proves that he is incompetent and does not know his material, or he suffers from a character defect, where truth is considered an inconvenience.
Abba Goldberg also dishonestly makes it seem as if “ex-gay” therapy is controversial in mainstream psychiatry and psychology. It is not, and there is a broad consensus that there is no evidence that such therapy works.
Just as he missed the Masters & Johnson study, it appears he was unaware of what the major mental health organizations say and last year’s landmark American Psychological Association report condemning reparative therapy.
In an act of unprecedented chutzpa, the convicted felon claims that there is “no documented evidence (of harm) for those who have gone through the entire process (of ex-gay therapy) of healing.” He cruelly blames any harm caused in “ex-gay” therapy on those who drop out in the middle of the process.
This is circular logic and a clever sleight of hand on the part of Abba Goldberg. Virtually all people who go through “ex-gay” therapy drop out in the middle, precisely because there is no end. Thus, according to his own reasoning, the vast majority – if not all- people who go through his program at JONAH can come out damaged. Sure, the people who finish aren’t damaged, but Abba Goldberg neglects to tell clients there is no finish line and has neglected to put forth people who have actually finished. His lone example — after a decade of alleged success — is a young man who is fairly new to “ex-gay” therapy.
Are we supposed to be impressed by this shoddy, almost non-existent record?
Furthermore, it is unconscionable that Abba Goldberg says there is no evidence of harm. What about the two young men who came forward two weeks ago to say they were victims of inappropriate sexual behavior by Abba Goldberg’s therapist, Alan Downing? We know that Abba Goldberg saw the video – so it is fair to say he is misleading the crowd and suppressing key evidence.
Without science on his side, Abba Goldberg devolves into crass stereotypes. In one of his typical bromides, the convicted felon claimed, “there is a tremendous amount of violence, particualrly in the lesbian community. It’s huge within that community.”
Abba Goldberg’s speech gets comical when he describes how young men become gay — although he noticeably has been unable to “cure” his own gay son.
The con man admits that there may be a biological component to homosexuality — but he says this element is merely “sensitivity”, which often causes men to reject their fathers and eventually end up gay.
Yeah, you can stop laughing. Basically, this bizarre explanation is made up out of thin air and constantly repeated by “ex-gay” organizations, despite lack of evidence or peer review studies.
Even screwier is Abba Goldberg’s claim that gay men lift weights to make up for a masculinity deficit.
“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Goldberg. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”
Actually, I’ve been going to the gym since I was 12, when I played on my school’s football and basketball teams. It is galling to see this little smurf of a man giving advice on masculinity. I take one look at this dweeb and don’t think he would make the cut on any of the teams that I have played on over the years. He really ought to change his pathetic, unscientific macho man act before he embarrasses himself further.
(I wonder what his thoughts are on the governor of California?)
What would an anti-gay speech be without the lie that people are gay because of sexual abuse?
“Sexual abuse is clearly a major issue,” said Abba Goldberg. “Because what happens is that a kid gets sexually abused, sometimes it really feels pretty good, you know, it’s like an erotic high. He may also have detachment at this point from his father. And, so, (he thinks), this is what masculine love is all about.”
Once a con artist, always a con artist. Although Abba Goldberg portrays himself as an “expert” on homosexuality — he knows very little on the issue. His presentation relied on twisting science, lying about debunked studies and regurgitating myths and stereotypes.
Tellingly, this sad, discredited figure is the best the anti-gay industry can do.
Last week, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) changed its name in the middle of a scandal to Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing. (Yeah, dumb, awkward name). This sleazy maneuver was denied by the group’s co-founder, convicted felon, Arthur Abba Goldberg, who said the name change occurred months ago.
Clearly, Abba Goldberg forgot to relay his seedy spin to Porno Pete LaBarbera at this week’s Truth Academy hate conference on the outskirts of Chicago. If you look at the list of speakers on the event’s curriculum, it says the name of Abba Goldberg’s group is Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality.
Desperate and hurting after two major scandals, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) sent out a pathetic fundraising letter begging supporters for old clothes. Here is an excerpt:
Do you or anyone you know have surplus goods of any sort? Manufacturers, retailers, or even individuals often have surplus goods they would like to dispose of, be it clothing, toys, crafts, appliances, electronics, furniture, collectibles, books and/or recordings. If these goods are sent to JONAH for which a tax exemption is obtainable, JONAH is able to turn the goods into dollars.
A supporter of JONAH has agreed to sell these donated surplus goods on our behalf. Please share your goods or sources of volume goods with us. We will acknowledge the donation as a tax exempt gift with proper valuation set by you and your tax advisor. Contact us at info@jonahweb.org. or call our office at 201-946-9933 for more information.
Please send JONAH pairs of old shorts and undergarments so its “therapy” clients have something to wear after life coaches try to get them naked.
Poor Arthur Abba Goldberg. He used to swindle millions of dollars from Wall Street before he went to the slammer. Now, he has been reduced to pawning second hand spandex and 8-track tapes to keep his bogus “ex-gay” scam alive.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote the following:
If one ever completely screws up his or her life and wants “redemption”, there are two courses of action. The first is a name change, with the hope that no one notices the sordid past. Don’t laugh, the technique worked for ValuJet. In 1996, the airline crashed into an alligator-infested swamp, changed its name to AirTran – and presto – it was like the disaster never happened.
And, like clock work, the beleaguered and scandalized “ex-gay” activist group, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, (JONAH) has changed its name to “Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing”
Where did JONAH get the idea of a name change in a time of scandal?
It came from its co-founder, Arthur Abba Goldberg, who is a convicted Wall Street con artist who looted millions of dollars from poor communities. After Goldberg’s parole was up, he dropped the “Abba” from his name, making it nearly impossible to find out about his sordid history on Google. It was at this point he reinvented himself as a great healer of homosexuals and co-founded JONAH. This scheme worked for nearly a decade, until it was uncovered this year by Truth Wins Out and the South Florida Gay News. So, it makes sense that this charlatan would replicate his old trick, which shielded him from controversy for years.
However, Goldberg can change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and it won’t make his tawdry criminal record disappear. Likewise, altering JONAH’s name will not erase the fact that the group’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, stands accused by two former clients of sexual misconduct. The facts won’t so easily be dismissed, nor will people be so easily fooled. And, if they are, Truth Wins Out will be there to remind them.
From what I hear through the grapevine, Goldberg is now claiming that “JONAH is at war.” I’m glad to hear this because he is now operating on my turf. I wish him luck and believe that our truth grenades will prevail over his bullshit bombs.
Goldberg is quite cunning. One has to be to steal millions of dollars — and nearly get away with it. His greatest weakness, however, is that he overestimates his abilities. He fervently believes that he is always the smartest person in the room — like the Enron guys. And we all know what happened to them.
While Goldberg might be a genius in money mismanagement (or is it malfeasance), he needs some work on his lousy PR instincts. For example, only someone delusional or out of touch would use disgraced “life coach” Richard Cohen (See pictures of therapy) as his therapeutic guru. He also made a gargantuan mistake by changing the name of JONAH to Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing.
Why?
The greatest weakness of this organization is the bizarre, sexually inappropriate and unproven methods of “healing” it promotes. As of today, they have made it infinitely easier to focus on the types of therapy provided to clients — including nude therapy, therapeutic lap dances and pretending to murder a parent by slamming a tennis racket into a pillow.
Truth Wins Out is excited about debating JONAH on its so-called “healing” methods. The truth is, Goldberg is the smartest person in the room — if the other people are George W. Bush and Carrie Prejean.
Goldberg and JONAH can change like chameleons, but, in the end, they will show their true colors. When they do, Truth Wins Out will be on the scene to shine a bright spotlight so the entire world will see the flawed and corrupt character of Goldberg and his minions at JONAH.
Burdened by two scandals, the ex-gay activist group Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality has changed its name.
The change occurred recently without fanfare on the organization’s web site. The new name: “Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing”
Despite the name change, JONAH’s mission remains largely the same:
Deny the existence of sexual orientation, a predominant state of sexual attraction to a particular gender
Promote the myth that homosexual attraction is caused not by biology or brain chemistry, but by a Freudian deficiency of “masculinity” in men that is caused by bad parenting or abuse
Receive substantial aid from conservative Christian evangelical organizations which teach that faith in Jesus Christ offers the only path out of homosexuality
And its credentials and practices are as scandalous as ever.
Far from “healing” its clients of any sexual confusion or self-doubt, JONAH has a reputation for supplying its clients with Christian evangelical books and subjecting them to unethical abuses that would never be tolerated among true mental-health professionals. And its counselors’ abuses aren’t “new alternatives,” they are century-old snake-oil remedies.
JONAH’s leader, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted Wall Street con artist who looted millions of dollars from poor communities. Goldberg has no professional credentials in the mental-health sciences
JONAH’s senior trainer, Alan Downing, likewise has no professional credentials and stands accused by two former clients of sexual misconduct
JONAH and its counselors refuse to keep accurate and comprehensive records about their clients, lest such records fall into the hands of objective scientists and be used to measure actual rates of success or failure
Ben Unger and Chaim Levin grew up in Orthodox Jewish homes in Brooklyn. They lived in traditional, socially conservative homes and tried to live up to the expectations of their faith and families.
They were gay, however, and were told they had to choose between being gay and Jewish – as if this were truly possible.
In a desperate search for “help”, Ben and Chaim found the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). This was the discredited organization founded by Wall Street con artist Arthur Abba Goldberg, who went to prison for massive bond fraud.
Goldberg promised to “cure” both men of their homosexuality and make them straight. He recommended that Ben and Chaim have therapy sessions with Alan Downing, a “life coach” who often conducted his practice out of JONAH’s headquarters. Downing is also a senior trainer for the controversial “ex-gay” outdoor retreat, Journey Into Manhood, which is run by the organization, People Can Change.
While Ben and Chaim were in “therapy”, Downing admitted that he was still attracted to men. In time, the sessions devolved into a “psychological striptease”, where the men were asked to strip completely named and touch themselves.
Both Ben and Chaim say they were harmed by the therapy and consider Downing’s actions highly unprofessional, unethical and inappropriate.
Unfortunately, groups like JONAH and People Can Change often place vulnerable people in the hands of unqualified, unhealthy “life coaches” and counselors who are struggling to accept their own repressed sexual orientation. This creates disastrous situations where unhealthy, predatory behavior can occur.
Fortunately, Ben and Chaim have come to accept themselves and now live as out, proud openly gay men. They warn Jewish LGBT youth to avoid fraudulent scams like JONAH and accept themselves.
Excellent column by Hardy Haberman on JONAH ex-gay “fondle therapy” scandal in the Dallas Voice:
With all the hubbub of the Fred Phelps Cult making a visit here and the oil spill continuing in the Gulf, one story seems to have dropped through the cracks. Luckily, Wayne Besen at the blog Truth Wins Out (TruthWinsOut.org) has been on it like a dog on a bone. It involves a group called JONAH.
Aside from the biblical acronym, the group’s full name is Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, and it is part of the ex-gay industry.
The group was co-founded by a fellow named Arthur Abba Goldberg. Seems he was known 20 years ago in the financial community as “Abba Cadabra” for his apparent wizardry with money. That wizardry turned out to be a scam, and Goldberg was convicted of federal mail and wire fraud as well as a conspiracy to sell worthless bonds.
The guy is a real peach, and now he has reinvented himself as the leader of an “ex-gay” therapy group.
One of his “life coaches,” Alan Downing, recently has been implicated in something a bit more touchy-feely than you would expect from an ex-gay. According to men who went to Downing, part of his treatment involves having clients strip naked in front of a mirror while touching parts of their bodies, including their genitals.
Contact: Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Therapist Alan Downing, A Key Figure In JONAH and People Can Change, Allegedly Made Clients Get Naked And Touch Genitals
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing (pictured) made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
Downing, who admits he is still attracted to men, is a major player in the “ex-gay” industry and a practitioner of so-called “reparative therapy”. He is the lead therapist for Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) and is listed on the People Can Change website as a “Senior Trainer” for Journey into Manhood, which is a controversial “ex-gay” backwoods retreat designed to supposedly make gay men more masculine.
“These dysfunctional, unscientific programs are rife with sexual impropriety and need to be shut down,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Too often, repressed ‘ex-gay’ quacks pretend they are trying to get into your head when they are really trying to get into your pants. They call what they do reparative therapy, but it’s more like re-perv-ative therapy.”
“He was encouraging me, ‘it’s okay Ben, you can take your shirt off’…here was a man that was much older than me, and I was around 20,” said Ben Unger, a former client of Alan Downing. “At that point, I was just staring at a mirror with my shirt off and he was right behind me staring at the mirror with me at my body. Then telling me to look at my body and feel my body. It was weird.”
“While I was standing there without my clothes on, he asked me to touch my genitals,” says former Downing client Chaim Levin. “Once again, I communicated that I was not comfortable with it. And he was like, you know, ‘just feel yourself. Just feel it for a second. So, you can grasp your masculinity physically.’”
“If you believe having a closeted gay therapist undressing clients makes one straight, than you’ll believe that playing doctor makes one a brain surgeon,” said TWO’s Besen. “The concept is both outrageous and ridiculous and these sick, exploitative practices should be abandoned immediately.”
JONAH was co-founded by Arthur Abba Goldberg, a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”. Upon completing parole, Goldberg secretly reinvented himself as a moral leader who “cures” gay and lesbian people. Known as “Abba Dabba Do” in the financial world, Goldberg was sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking poor communities with complicated bond schemes and served six months in prison.
“Given the sordid history of JONAH, this latest scandal is not too surprising,” said TWO’s Besen. “This is an unscrupulous organization of high moral turpitude that has few qualms about harming desperate and vulnerable clients. This group has consistently been tied to bizarre, sexually suggestive methods that are unsettling, dangerous and ineffective.”
Journey into Manhood, where Downing is a counselor, exhibits similar eyebrow raising techniques. Writer Ted Cox infiltrated this peculiar program and was surprised to find what he called, “homoerotic exercises” and a cabin that he called “The Cuddle Room” because it was a space where supposedly “ex-gay” men gave each other inappropriate massages.
“Apparently some of the guys in one cabin threw their mattresses into the middle of the room and had an all-night holding session,” said one of the men attending the Journey into Manhood session, according to Cox’s article.
“How ironic that therapists that claim to cure homosexuals keep ending up naked with their gay clients,” said TWO’s Besen. “Such lurid exploitation has moved from a disconcerting pattern to a full-blown trend and it needs to be investigated by the authorities.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights religious extremism. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders as charlatans. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera billed his three-day “Truth Academy”, that took place in a Chicago exurb last week, as “one of the most thorough pro-family, educational seminars on homosexuality ever held in the United States.” The event was heavily promoted for weeks on right wing websites, such as World Net Daily, which had an article headlined, “Exposed: Gay Brainwashing of America’s Youth.”
It came from its co-founder, 
Goldberg is quite cunning. One has to be to steal millions of dollars — and nearly get away with it. His greatest weakness, however, is that he overestimates his abilities. He fervently believes that he is always the smartest person in the room — like the Enron guys. And we all know what happened to them.
The greatest weakness of this organization is the bizarre, sexually inappropriate and unproven methods of “healing” it promotes. As of today, they have made it infinitely easier to focus on the types of therapy provided to clients — including nude therapy, therapeutic lap dances and pretending to murder a parent by slamming a tennis racket into a pillow.
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) released an exclusive video statement today from two former clients of “ex-gay” life coach Alan Downing. The clients, Ben Unger and Chaim Levin, alleged that during individual therapy sessions, Downing (pictured) made them undress in front of a mirror and touch their bodies while the significantly older therapist watched. Unger and Levin call the sessions a “psychological striptease” and believe they were harmed by what they consider unprofessional behavior and sexual misconduct.
