Coming Out
- Gil Hochberg
- Nov 9
- 4 min read
By Gil Hochberg
I first learned that my father was the Messiah in 1989, just days before my 20th birthday. The two of us were in a coffee shop, not far from Tel Aviv University, where he was a professor of statistics and I, a second-year student of philosophy. Our meeting was arranged by my mother, his divorcée of fourteen years. She hardly ever talked to him, so when she called him a couple of days earlier and told him he must meet me and address what she described as “an emergency situation,” he was both alarmed and tantalized. He could hardly hide his excitement; I heard it in his voice when he called: “Hi kiddo, your mom called me; she wants me to talk to you. Can you meet tomorrow?”
The coffee shop was walking distance from campus. It was our usual meeting spot despite the fact that it was grim and served nothing but bad coffee and dry pastry. Sitting on small, uncomfortable wooden stools, we were both visibly nervous, shifting restlessly in our seats, sipping bitter coffee, and pretending to enjoy the stale croissants. He was nervous because he had no idea why we were meeting; I was nervous because I did.
Just a few days earlier, I came out to my mom, hoping, assuming in fact, that being a poet, a bohemian, and an open-minded romantic soul, she would embrace my lesbianism, hesitant as it was. I was wrong. She didn’t welcome the news. Worse, she denied it: “You are not!” was her response. Followed by: “We’re not going to talk about this. This conversation you’ll have with your father. These kinds of perversions run in his family!”
So there we were, father and daughter meeting in a café to discuss “perversions.” Being forced into this one-on-one emergency meeting felt contrived, and given my mom’s reaction, I was extremely nervous. Unlike her, the bohemian poet who sometimes called herself “a communist,” my dad, a numbers professor, was an observant Jew who kept kosher and Shabbat. If she couldn’t handle this, how possibly would he?
Finally, after a long silence, my dad looked at me, smiled, and said, “So, kiddo, what’s the emergency?”
“Kiddo,” his soft voice shook me and I felt a twisting in my chest. I looked at him; in his mid-forties, he looked much older than his age. His eyes looked sad when I looked back up at his face. I don’t want to hurt him, I thought. Then, I don’t want to be hurt by him.
“Come on, what is it, kiddo? Drugs? Are you pregnant? You want to quit college? Just spill it out.”
“No. No,” I responded, a bit disappointed with the list of clichés he’d pulled out of his pocket. I took a deep breath and spewed it out: “I think I’m a lesbian. Maybe bisexual.” My dad lowered his eyes, took another sip of his coffee. My heart was racing. Here we go again, I was thinking, expecting him to either reject my confession as my mother did, or get cross at me. Are women allowed to be lovers according to the Torah? I asked myself, regretting that I hadn't come to the meeting better prepared.
My dad put his cup down, released a tired smile, and said in a low voice: “That’s it? This is the emergency? The big news?” He seemed genuinely disappointed. Then, he pulled his chair even closer to mine, locked eyes with me, and said in a prophetic tone: “None of this is important, kiddo. Not important at all. Gay, straight, bisexual. Whatever. These are earthly matters.” He used the rabbinic Aramaic term inyanai dyuma (daily affairs), which took me by surprise and surely elevated the conversation to a register far beyond earthly matters.
At once, my queerness, which my mother deemed “perversion” and “an emergency situation,” became inyanai dyuma: a matter of the most mundane and trivial nature. Something hardly worthy of attention. I was confused. Then, before I had a chance to collect my thoughts and respond, my dad continued: “Do not waste time thinking about such matters. These are but small details in God’s grand plan!”
“God’s grand plan?” I asked in a tone part sincere part sarcastic.
My dad ignored the question. He picked up his cup and sipped on whatever was left of his coffee. Then, he put his arm on my shoulder and pronounced theatrically: “Now thank you, kiddo, for sharing your news with me! Allow me now to share mine.” He leaned over even closer, and whispered in my ear slowly in a deep low voice: “I know a thing or two about God’s plan, you see, I am the Messiah. I know, it is hard to believe, but yes... your father is the Messiah.” And with a triumphant smile he leaned back and added, “Now that is big news!”
I stared at him, hoping to detect a smile, or some other sign indicating that he was joking. But no. He was dead serious.
“So,” I said hesitantly trying to keep it light, “I guess we both came out today?”
“Yes!” he almost shouted, “coming out day!”
He paid and we left. Then just before we parted he said: “If there is one thing I know for sure it is that God has a plan. We don’t have to understand it, we can’t: God’s ways are a mystery. So if God decided that the Messiah’s daughter is a lesbian, who are we to question that?”
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This short piece is from my forthcoming memoir: "My Father, The Messiah" (forthcoming out Spring 2026, Duke University Press). I originally wrote it as a stand-alone Flash Nonfiction and still thinks it works great as such. I would love to see it published with you. “Coming Out” starts as a typical “coming out story” with a twenty years old daughter (me) nervously meeting her father to tell him she is a lesbian. Things take up a surprising turn when the father comes up with his own coming out story, which involves nothing less than God’s grand plans.
Aside from writing creative nonfiction, I am a professor of Middle East Studies and Comparative literature at Columbia University and the writer of three academic books.
Gil Hochberg
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