Jewish and HIV Positive

By Scott Fried

I am a world away in Tel Aviv. I am readying my heart, with a new prayer, for the work I am committed to do in the days ahead.

"Hineni Sh'lach L'ani
Here I am, God. Send me.
Grant me miracles in this place.
Rescue the poetry from the pain
And give me a soul that sees your gifts before me."

I have traveled to Israel to talk about my life as an HIV positive Jewish man. I am here to teach teenagers and young adults about AIDS, love and staying alive. I am here to talk about safer sex and death and the goodness of life. Mostly, though, I have come to teach whomever God places in my path. And what at first seemed like indecision has now become faith. And faith has become words. And words have become healing. And all at once I understand why I have come.

The students I meet tell me that every day, three more Israelis become infected with HIV. Some of the teenagers know the facts about the AIDS virus, but most do not. And almost no one has had any contact with an HIV positive person. Until now. My mission is clear: I am here to represent the best of life in spite of what young people probably see as the worst of life.

Melissa is a young Israeli who heard me speak in America four summers ago. Now we find ourselves sitting at a cafe on Ben Yehuda Street. "I'm single," she volunteers, with a sheepish smile. "I got rid of the guy I was dating last year. I just wasn't in love. I want a family and a future with someone. I want so many things out of my life, Scott, and I think about AIDS all the time. I'm so afraid that it paralyzes me."

For many of the students I meet, there are few chances to discuss their anxieties or to ask questions freely about AIDs and sexuality. I sense the importance Melissa places on my advice and am careful not to miscommunicate the cost of taking risks in life. "The more you know, the less you'll fear," I tell her, but that is not enough. So we talk specifically about body fluids that transfer the virus and mucous membranes.

Tonight I gave an Hartz-a-ah (lecture) to a group called "The Agudah," a volunteer based non-profit organization that serves the GLBT (gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender) community in Israel -- the only such group that exists in the Middle East. I spoke to a group of about sixty gay, mostly teenage boys, and several young women. Although I had agreed to talk about gay life in New York City, I had traveled 6,000 miles to save lives, not to teach gay Israelis how to dress more like New Yorkers.

"If I met one of you at the He/She (a popular new gay bar in Tel Aviv) and took you home, and we started making out and undressing each other...and then I told you that I was HIV positive, be honest: What would you do?" The response was unanimous: "Run the other way!"

They were eager to talk about this situation because, they said, no one talks about their HIV status in Israel. "That means you probably have had sex with more than one HIV positive person this year," I said, explaining that recently I had been at the He/She bar. "Who knows how many others like me were there?"

I commended the group for finding each other at such a young age and for creating a refuge to help them get through a difficult adolescence. But I added that it is not enough to be out and proud at eighteen. "You must still be safe," I said, "Safer in fact." When the meeting was over, several students thanked me for speaking so openly and truthfully about HIV and AIDS. Others wrote me appreciative notes.

Another night, I find myself speaking to a group of North Americans attending a program with Young Judaea -- a pluralistic Zionist youth movement that imbues teenagers with a deep commitment to state of Israel. A young man who had been in remission from lymphoma for two years wanted me to talk about how I cope with the possibility of facing an early death. I admit to knowing that feeling of dread and share with the group how it feels to have lost more than 130 friends to AIDS, and about my own fear of death.

Other students approach me privately about whether or not they were at risk for AIDS. They always want me to tell them if they should get tested, as if I were a sort of magic AIDS psychic. I tell them that it's up to them to decide, but that if in doubt, they might want to get tested anyway, just to be certain.

"Promise me," I tell a young woman named Dina, who had used condoms, except once or twice, "that you'll find a way to learn to demand to be safe with a guy."

"I make that promise," she said.

After my Young Judaea lecture ended, a group of us went outside to the roof to watch the sun set over Jerusalem.

Scott Fried is a seven-year veteran of the lecture circuit and a person living with HIV for last eleven years. He has lectured across the United States and in Israel on topics including sexual responsibility, homosexuality, peer pressure, refusal skills and death. He was seen on the television daytime drama Guiding Light portraying Bart, a young man living with AIDS and he is featured in the book Living Proof: Courage in the Face of AIDS (Artabras; 88 pages; $9.98). He has been interviewed on ABC Eyewitness News and The Sally Jesse Raphael Show and received the Honorary Star of the Rainbow Award along with Chastity Bono for his work with teens. He is the author of If I Grow Up (86 pages; $12.00), a self-published chronicle of his experiences and lectures.