A Jewish man has been left shocked after a lesbian couple rejected him as a sperm donor due to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Perth hairstylist Jay Lazarus, who is gay, got his generous offer to help another gay couple have a child back in a blunt message.
“We do not have the ability to navigate parts of your identity in this donor relationship,” it said.
The female couple had clarified what those parts of Mr. Lazarus’ identity were, saying they had “ethical challenges” about “the war between Israel and Gaza.”
The message came despite Mr Lazarus meeting the couple more than a year ago and going for an IVF consultation to get the ball rolling.
‘At first I went into complete shock. I couldn’t believe my religion was being included as a gift in what I was doing,” Mr Lazarus told Daily Mail Australia.
He said the couple “preferred to go back to the first stage of the donor process rather than accept my Jewish sperm.”
Mr Lazarus said the couple have since contacted him again and revealed the extraordinary apology they gave when he publicly called them out.
A Jewish man (pictured, Jay Lazarus) has been left shocked after a lesbian couple rejected him as a sperm donor due to the Israel-Gaza conflict
Perth hairstylist Jay Lazarus, who is gay, got his generous offer to help another gay couple get a child back in a blunt message
The couple who rejected his sperm donation initially told him they were “down a rabbit hole with the depth of our emotions.”
“And honestly, we don’t feel well enough to move forward with this donor relationship,” they wrote.
‘We are about kindness and love. Everything we do, or what we work towards, is love in action, for every person.
“We are sad for the Israelis (sic) and we are sad for the Palestinian people, so deeply sad.
“We do not have the ability to navigate parts of your identity in this donor relationship, so we are respectfully terminating it now,” they said.
After making the rejection public on social media, Mr Lazarus was flooded with messages of support.
“It really shocked a lot of people, which was incredible because I honestly didn’t think it would get that much traction or anything like that.
“It was unbelievable… the Jewish community is so angry and everyone around me has been so supportive,” he said.
“(But) for non-Jewish people to contact me and send me private messages, I mean, there are so many angry people.
‘I’ve only had good reactions to it. It made me feel a lot better.’
Mr Lazarus said he has heard from the couple since he revealed what happened his Instagram page.
“I didn’t hear from them until the last day,” he said.
“(But) I didn’t open their message at first because I’m on vacation for a friend’s wedding and I didn’t want to mess things up.
Mr Lazarus, who is gay, had his generous offer to help another gay couple have a child thrown back in a blunt message saying: ‘We do not have the ability to navigate parts of your identity in this donor relationship ‘
Mr. Lazarus (photo) is encouraged by the support he is receiving from both within and outside the Jewish community
“But I’ve opened them up now, and they’ve gone out of their way to almost take it back, saying it has nothing to do with me being Jewish.
“It has to do with the fact that they are pro-Palestine, and… I don’t know if that’s better,” he said.
“They just threw it all at me… I’m not going to respond… it’s not good enough.”
Mr Lazarus had initially met the couple through a Facebook page, where he posted a message offering to be a sperm donor.
“I just wrote about myself and my husband and our journey and why we wanted to help another couple,” he said.
“And they reached out to me and I really liked their first message and they sent me some pictures and I was like, oh, well, let’s get to know these girls.
By October 2022, he and the couple had decided to go ahead with him as a sperm donor and he had his initial consultation at an IVF clinic in Queensland.
But a year later, the Israeli-Palestinian war led the couple to change their minds about their “ethical challenges.”
Mr Lazarus had initially met the couple through a Facebook page, where he posted a message offering to be a sperm donor
In addition to being encouraged by the support of friends and strangers alike, Mr. Lazarus appreciated hearing that the upper echelons of Jewish society also had his back.
A reporter from the Australian Jewish News told him that one of Sydney’s most orthodox religious rabbis had asked the journalist to contact him.
“And I think that’s a whole different level, for a religious Jewish rabbi to want to write this,” Mr. Lazarus said.
“Especially being a gay Jewish man, it just really affected me that even orthodox religious rabbis are absolutely disgusted by it.”