About 60 students and local residents gathered at the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel last night to listen to a seven-person panel discuss the issue of homosexuality and its place in Judaism.

The event, entitled "Out of Tradition," was organized by the Hillel Interethnic Committee and BAGELS, a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Jewish people and their friends.

David L. Levy '00, a leader of BAGELS and one of the organizers of the discussion, began the evening by describing the difficulties he had in coming out to the Harvard Jewish community.

"The Jewish community was the only place I was not out. I wasn't really comfortable being an out gay guy in the Jewish community," Levy said.

The members of the panel, which included Hillel's Reform Rabbinic advisor Sally R. Finestone, discussed their experiences with homosexuality and Judaism.

Hagai El-Ad, a Ph. D. candidate at Hebrew University currently studying at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics, said that he originally had trouble merging his homosexuality with his faith.

"Around my bar mitzvah, I realized for the first time I was gay. Or as I termed it, I had a problem. I spent the next seven years in denial trying to suppress it and to correct it. Eventually, I realized that my original notion, that I cannot be gay and Jewish, was wrong," El-Ad said.

Panel member David J. Fine, a rabbinical student in New York and the representative of Conservative Judaism, said that he believes the Conservative movement will change its views on homosexuality within 10 to 15 years.

"I've committed myself to find a way to change things in the Conservative movement, We need good Jews and good Jews want us. So What's the problem?" Fine said.

Finestone said she witnessed firsthand the difficulties colleagues went through in trying to maintain their homosexuality and their faith while studying to be a rabbi.

"I saw my friend struggle as they might have to live in the closet in order to serve their community," Finestone said.

Panel member Alex Borns-Weil said that the panel performed a valuable service.

"I think it's important to help people understand gays and lesbians. It's critical to getting to a point where it's a nonissue," Borns-Weil said.

Julia M. Rosenbloom '01, a co-chair of the Interethnic Committee and one of the organizers of the event, said one of the purposes of the event was to create discussion in the Jewish community about homosexuality.

"We wanted to start a dialogue about homosexuality and religion, specifically Judaism. What we would like to see happen in the future is to have a religion wide panel that talks about homosexuality and religion in general as opposed to just homosexuality and Judaism," Rosenbloom said.