Editorial note: Light spoilers ahead for “Wicked: For Good.”
“Why do I love this place that’s never loved me?”
That’s the opening line of “No Place Like Home,” a new song from “Wicked: For Good,” which I saw this past Sunday. As a queer person in the Orthodox community, those words hit hard.
Throughout my life, I’ve been asked over and over: “If Orthodoxy doesn’t accept you, why don’t you just leave?” And the truth is, I have felt pushed away time and time again. I’ve been rejected from Orthodox professional opportunities — not because of my qualifications, I was later told, but because of who I am. After I came out, I was uninvited from Orthodox events at which I had previously been a regular speaker. I’ve even been told by Yeshivish family that I am not permitted to sit at the same table as their unmarried, adult children. The organization I lead, JQY, regularly receives messages and hateful comments telling us to leave and that we’re the reason there is antisemitism.
And yet, the answer I’ve given to this question — “Why don’t you just leave?” — has always felt simple to me: Because it’s home.
I didn’t choose Orthodoxy the way someone chooses a school or a neighborhood. Its rituals, its language, its rhythms. They aren’t just customs. They’re the backdrop of my childhood, the songs of my Shabbat table, the words that shaped my values. These are my people. My family.
I attended Yeshiva University for 12 years in a row, from high school through graduate school, and was a proud student leader in each of the schools I attended. I rose in the ranks in my summer camp from counselor to division head to program director and lived 10 months of the year just for the two months I got to spend in camp — my spiritual oasis that was home away from home. Leaving Orthodoxy would mean erasing all the points from my resume. It would mean losing the life I worked so hard to build — the life I want.
Later in the song, Elphaba sings: “Oz is more than just a place / It’s a promise, an idea / And I want to help make it come true.” That’s Orthodoxy, too. At its best, it’s a promise. A framework for beauty, compassion and communal responsibility. I was taught that the world stands on three things: Torah, worship and chesed — lovingkindness. That you protect the vulnerable, welcome the stranger, love your neighbor as yourself.
And yet, as a queer Jew, I’ve often found myself on the outside of the very rules I was taught. Too often, the commandments that center human dignity feel optional, while the ritual ones remain non-negotiable. And still, I believe in what observant Judaism could be. What it’s meant to be.
Because when you love something deeply, you don’t abandon it. You fight for it to live up to its own ideals.
Elphaba sings this song after she’s lost nearly everything: her cause, her public support, her best friend, her love. Her people. Her family. And yet, she sings it as a rallying cry for the animals of Oz and for herself. A reminder not to walk away, even when staying hurts.
“When you feel you can’t fight anymore / Just tell yourself / There’s no place like home,” Elphaba sings.
Many queer Jews do leave Orthodox Judaism. Sometimes walking away is a form of survival. But some stay, bruised but hopeful that their religion will fulfill the promise they believe it is capable of.
“Think how you’ll grieve for all you leave behind.”
The loss that comes with choosing to leave the community is so painful.
“Oz belongs to you too.”
But the community is ours too. Even if we are the minority. Even if we are not the ones in positions of power. It is ours. Even if it tries to push us out. We still get to claim it.
“If we just keep fighting for it / We will win back and restore it / There’s no place like home.”
That’s the anthem. Not because Orthodoxy is perfect — far from it. But because it belongs to me too. And I will not abandon this beauty and meaning to those who refuse to make space for people like me.
In the end, Elphaba does actually leave Oz. Not because she stops caring, but because she knows she can no longer stay safely. Her departure isn’t abandonment; it’s survival. But before she goes, she entrusts leadership to Glinda — someone she loves and believes will fight for a better Oz. For many queer Orthodox Jews, that’s the tension: Staying feels impossible or even dangerous, but leaving the only home we know means trusting that those who stay will continue to push forward. Those who choose to remain do so not out of stubbornness, but from a place of love and the belief that change is possible — especially with real allies by our side.
I believe in what this community can become. I fight for other Jewish Orthodox queers like me — especially the youth — who deserve to feel at home in this space that they are born into and that they love. I’m here because there’s no place like it. And I know it can be changed, for good.
