Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Dr. Sara Glass

If you read a certain amount of books, more than the average anyway, on a specific topic or belonging to a well-defined genre, sooner or later you will become satiated with the topic. There is a certain pattern repeated over and over again, with only personal details filled in. Take, for instance, the case of the off the derech memoirs, out of which I´ve read a good bunch of in the last years, as the genre is becoming more and more popularity.

You have the person who does not fit in, the oppressive religious conformity that cannot be tolerated any more, following an illumination-kind of acknowledging the absurdity of some or all religious tenets. Afterwards, there is the fight or the loneliness, faced with the lack of skills for economic survival and very often the struggle to keep the children or the broken heart for not being able to keep them.

However, despite the overall predictability, I will not give up reading those memoirs, because the more repetitive they are, the clearer the certain trends within religious communities - I read in general memoirs of getting out of faith: there is a new generation that may find different ways of positioning towards religion and willingly or not, even the most closed groups will be suprepticiously changed one day.

Take, for instance, the Gur Hasidim, who are practicing very strict marital relationships, considered by many as oppressive: not using the given name for the wife, separate walking ways, discourage of any closeness between spouses unless for procreation. Being born a Gur in America, experiencing queerness from an early age, Dr. Sara Glass succeeded to write her own story: becoming independent, cutting the dependency ties with the community while keeping her precious children.

Manipulated into religion by the sake of her children and the religious background of her family - ´A kosher woman does the will of her husband´ -, she had to play the appearances, even after her divorce, otherwise she may have lose them. The power of the batei din - the religious tribunal deciding, among other, in issues of divorce and child custody - may overcome that of the secular authorities, especially when the woman does not have the proper knowledge and advice for checking the content of the documents she is signing. You are not represented by a lawyer in the front of the religious courts thus the risk of being completely unaware of the legal consequences of the documents signed. Religious communities are tied by trust, obviously, why do someone may need a lawyer anyway?

Kissing Girls on Shabbat that I had the chance to have access to in audiobook format, read by the author, focus less on how bad, backwarded and generally disgusting the community is - as it is the case in at least one such memoir - but on her own story. Her own work to achieve the best version of herself, the engagement trying to help people in a similar situation, her doubts and obsessive fears of being taken away her children. Also, more importantly, the importance of actively being involved in helping distressed people, unable to get over by themselves of their mental health struggle, overcoming generational or recent family trauma. 

It is love not hate or revenge that motivates her life. At 24, she was the mother of two children, at 32 she came out, and established her career as a therapist while being together with her children. Education gives power, including to gently overcome one own´s struggles.

Kissing Girls on Shabbat - whose collage-like cover is also worth mentioning - is a moving testimony of those strengths.

Rating: 4.5 stars

An Immodest Story

 

I am always keen to read memoirs, but also novels, featuring individuals, particularly women, who went OTD - out of the Orthodox Jewish path. With more individuals with a strict religious background having access to education and social media, the number of such work exponentially increased in the last decade. Although some may say that no one shows too much interest in portraying ´normal´ happy Jewish Orthodox families - partly truth as well, but do the happy Jewish Orthodox women do have the time and resources to dedicate to such projects (except some women rather belonging to the ´modern Orthodox´ version like Chabad)?

I am particularly interested in stories focused on the conflict between worlds, about the tension the character who left behind a stable world succeeds - or not - to swim through the challenging waves of the modern lives. Despite the patterns that are common to everyone, there are so many nuances that are part of the individual story of each and every one of us, as human beings.

Immodest is the second book by the Israeli author L.E.Einat - Einat Lifshitz Shem Tov.  She is based in Israel and has a BA in History, with masters in guidance and counseling. 

The book tells the story of Perele, a rebelious girl growing up in a big Orthodox family, married against her will with an aggressive man at a very young age, who will get a divorce against the opposition of her community leaving behind not only the abusive marriage, but her strict practice as well. The story has some interesting characters - her mother for example, able to overcome the limits internalised about marriage and women role by her community and makes a step towards accepting her daughter, as well as her mother-in-law, who ends up testifying by her own will in court against her own violent son, although her husband supported him. Perele herself is a well defined character, although she is missing a lot of details that would have make her more relatable, including her everyday Orthodox practice, besides the modesty rules - like, for instance, the fact that there are no details about her own relationship with religion, the ways in which she fills her day as a Jewish Orthodox woman.

The book also approaches the issue of sexual abuse within family, a vague reminder of the excellent and mindblowing Hush. However, this subplot does not necessarily adds on to the main story, being rather presented as a consequence of the lack of sexual education within the community.

What for me was very difficult to grasp for a long time within the story was: 1. Where exactly the story takes place and 2. What Hasidic group it is all about. 

As in the case of Perele´s own story, there are scarce details regarding the location of the story. For many pages into the book, the surroundings are so neutral that they can be in NYC, Marais or Stanford Hills. We are told somewhere that in fact it is happening in Israel, and I may figure out by myself that it could be Bnei Brak - also as it is close from the beach. 

As for the Hasidic group, the riddle is solved somewhere in the second half, as Perele is starting to share her experience with sexuality and the ways in which ´her group´ dismisses any mixture between genders and considers sexuality as a tool for procreation - and no, not all Hasidic groups think the same. Without being mentioned, it´s clear that we have to do with the very strict and cultish-like habits of the Gur Hasidim that do have an important number of followers in Bnei Brak. 

Another discrepancy for me, but maybe less important anyway, is the cover, which shows a woman that one will rather meet in Gush Etzion that in Bnei Brak where she will be for sure considered very modern. 

However, for anyone who wants to read about a story of survival through love and resilience, Immodest is a catching read. Those who went already to such a dramatic family break-up it´s a reminder of all the wounds that will never heal, but also about the chances that open up, once the walled world was left far behind.

Rating: 3 stars

Book Review: Brazen by Julia Haart

´I may be tiny, but I can be deadly´.

I am a consumer of almost everything about the condition of the off-the derech. What is now at the margins, the dissent wave against the various establishments, may one day represent the mainstream. It used to happen with the Hasidim once upon a time as well.

However, after reading quite a couple of such testimonies - and watching some movies as well - there is a given setting which defines this emerging genre, a pattern which at the limit is a easy/cheap recipe stereotypically reproducing itself. Some of its features are: escape from the ´cult´; cutting the ties/becoming estranged with/from the ´old world´ - among which children, siblings, parents and/or spouse; few paragraphs repeated in different forms about the oppressive dress code and the nida laws; excessive search for sexual adventures; getting saved by someone, something, an organisation, literature, the non-Jewish boyfriend. It looks as a cartoonish - cynical - description which unfortunately is what often the ´outside´ world wants to listen. No matter if it is the same old story re-told again and again, important is to have a bit of fun with an escape-game-from the Middle Ages cultish mindset.

There are some noticeable exceptions but unfortunately the more I read the less I am interested in continuing this intellectual adventure. Although, my curiosity is bigger than my literary standards, therefore count on my to review the next OTD memoir.

My latest journey was Julia Haart of Netflix´s My Unorthodox Life, Brazen. I had watched the movie - rather said, punished myself to do it - and was appalled by the vulgarity and exhibitionism. Plus, doing a bit of research, I realized how fake this ´reality´ show actually was. Both Haart and her daughter Batsheva divorced shortly after the end of the series, despite the excessive displays of love and harmony towards their respective spouses. 

I started the book though with an open mind and I appreciated the first part of it, despite the high need of editing and the overall bad and incoherent writing. Plus an inadvertence or two, like mentioning that ´yeshivish´ is a sect. 

Haart was born in Soviet Russia and left with her non-religious parents when she was three years old. Her parents, scientists by background, turned religious - not Chabad though - and with the enthusiasm of the new comers hurried to adopt extreme versions of different religious practices. Although lacking a formal education, Haart used to be a teacher - religious, including - in various girls school. As a Monsey resident, the mother of four felt oppressed by the men-predominant society, parting ways to a world where ´women acquire greatness by proxy´. Her taking off from the religious world took her around 12 years. At 42, she left her husband and started a career as shoe designer, living the fashion glamour while living in hotels by the week and heimische for her children during the weekend. 

The ways in which she fought to keep his children close, despite her more and more extravagant style is meritory and no matter the circumstances, her success had a positive impact on the life of her children - her daughter Miriam and Batsheva are social media stars with fat advertising contracts and following. 

Most probably there is much hidden from her story, that may not suit her ´feminist´ assertions. Less sordid still obsessive, her sexual adventures do not necessarily bring anything spectacular to her story. In 2022, many women do have sex when and where and with whom they want, especially her aimed audience. If they would have been told in a more literary way, maybe there would have been a higher interest, otherwise, a big bored sigh from me. 

Her deep anger for being for over 40 years kept captive in a society not at all friendly towards women - bodies, clothes, their careers other than baby-making - is understandable. But there were people among the religious who invested first a humongous amount of money, without recipes, in her company. 

Haart adds the character of the ´business women´ to the series of OTD life stories. It was partially interesting to get into her story, although I doubt greatly the veridicity of many facts. And a memoir whose authenticity is in doubt ceased for being a memoir at all. 

UltraOrthodox

I rarely had the chance to read a book belonging to the emerging Jewish literary genre of OTD-Memoirs with such a gentle and angerless take as Akiva Weingarten´s. Born and raised in the midst of the insular Satmar community in NYC, he eventually moved to Israel languising for knowledge in Bnei Brak while being trapped in the emptiness of a mimetic family life.

With 1000 USD in the pocket, out of it 40 Euro he had to pay the fine for buying the wrong metro ticket, Weingarten arrived in Berlin decided to radically leave behind his past and start anew. Maybe as a doctor. But one can dream when there is no clear proof of academic evaluation, one cannot move forward towards achieving an university profile. Sadly by co-existing in a separate, sometimes antinomic educational system, the members of ultraorthodox groups automatically limit the chances of professional achievement. Of course, there is a subtle way of controlling the knowledge and the information coming in and out the group, a more subsidious kosher filters Weingarten used to promote for a short amount of time, but nevertheless it is a sad reality.

To my knowledge, this is the first such memoir completely written in the German language - Deborah Feldman was first ´famous´ in the English-speaking realm before making a media and publishing career in Germany anyway. Although the explanation of different practices and terminology takes an important part of the book, the focus is on the journey and the search for meaning. Life meaning, once one lives religion and its mental and physical comfort. 

After spending a couple of years in Berlin and graduating from Avraham Geiger Kolleg in Potsdam, Weingarten founded a Besht Yeshiva in Dresden. Named after the initiator of the Hasidism, Baal Shem Tov, the yeshiva is aimed to help people who left Orthodoxy settle in their new life. At the beginning, long before the Shoah, Hasidism was created as a reaction against the ´institutionalisation´ of Jewish institution, represented by the Litvische mainstream at the time. Nowadays, it evolved itself as a very conservative mainstream of Judaism. History repeats itself in a different timeline and with a different approach.

I enjoyed reading UltraOrthodox and I wish the book will be translated into English soon too. It is an intellectually passionate journey that deserves a larger audience, for sure.

Book Review: A Seat at the Table by Joshua Halberstam

Each story of leaving religion is different and the phenomenon is not new. New are only the outreach possibilities and the multiple ways people who left can tell their stories.

The OTD stories were probably less dramatic in the time of Potok. But going off the derech is obviously not a new phenomenon. Nowadays the cases are just amplified by the social media and various e-publications.

A Seat at the Table. A Novel of Forbidden Choices by Joshua Halberstam tells the story of Elisha, a 17 years old boy, from a Hasidic family in Boro Bark. Like the author of the book, he is scion of fine rabbinic families, refugiated to America from the old countries. The story takes place at the end of the 1960s, when America was at a crossroad of mentality changes, with the anti-war protests and Flower Power movement taking over the country. 

An anthropology student, Elisha is struggling to discover the world through his own eyes and make sense. The Hasidic masters and writings he grew up with are his guidance, but in a world which does not exclude the secular path. His switch is never permanent and, as many of those who left a world behind, they are never completelly cut out from their past. The familiarity of reciting a bracha or the felling of being at home when being around the family table at a Seder. However, some decided that being in both worlds can be possible, pursuing a secular life suits better his or her expectations about life. Refusing to be judgemental and leaving the doors always open, instead of a stubborn rejection of the family ties with the rebel(s) is in line with the deep message of the Hasidism, the one before it was distorted and turned into an ideological sword cutting the ties with those who do not conform.

I enjoyed the slow pace of the book, as well as the drama free plot and the positive message. Although not all the characters are equal and I would have expect more deep understanding from Elisha, the story is enjoyable and in many respects relatable. 

I may confess that I´ve discovered A Seat at the Table while randomly browsing for some easy readings but it kept me busy and was interesting enough to be worth a blog review.

Rating: 3 stars

Un-Unorthodoxing

In the last decade, a vast repertoire of books, movies and public appearances were associated with the phenomenon of religious Jews deciding to leave the fold. Either they lost completely their faith, or were unhappy with the strict rules of their community, for gender-related reasons or simply because they wanted to pursue their academic dreams. Some of their testimonies, like the memoir of Leah Vincent (by far, one of my favorite literary work in this respect), are a dramatic account of the struggles many of those who are leaving their close-knitted communities are going through. Movies like One of Us are featuring the family drama affecting not only the parents who are breaking up with their religious past, but especially their children. Those days, it is so popular to mention Unorthodox as a reference for the isolated ´Hasidic life´ within the Satmar.

However, there is only one half of the glass. Most precisely, this half of the glass is what the wide - often non-Jewish, especially in Germany - expects to read about religious Jews: that their life is sad, mechanical, aimed at producing children and opressing women, who are forced to shave their hair after getting married and prevented from getting and education.

This article published in the Jewish Chronicle this week reminds that there is a large category of people unrepresented in the cultural and literary renditions on religious life: people that returned to religion, the so-called ba´alei tshuva or chozer b´tshuva. Of course, there is Shtisel on Netflix about a religious family from the Geula neighbourhood of Jerusalem. There is the movie Ushpizin about the Breslov couple who returned to religion. But outside the religious circles, memoirs and media stories and testimonies about this phenomenon, who is affecting a lot of Jewish families, in Israel and America particularly, there is not too much to be told. Indeed, Unorthodox is featuring the adventures of the liberated Esty in Berlin, but in the same city of Berlin, there are so many young religious families, whose members, many originary from the former Soviet Union, are people that grew up without any religious background. There are people with high academic training that are also practicant Jews. 

For the sake of diversity, I would love to read, hear and see more of those stories too. 

'One of Us'...

Telling the stories of people that left the Hasidic way of life in New York, the Netflix documentary One of Us is as heartbreaking as such stories could be. 

No parent should be left without his children because a different life choice. No child abuse should be tolerated, regardless how pious the perpetrator looks like for the community. The help organisations like Footsteps in New York offer to those who left the fold to integrate into the new life is tremendous and it is important for people to know that they are not alone. After belonging your own life to a tight community when everyone is part of the whole, finding yourself completely on your own in this big crazy world requires a lot of time and patience and knowledge about how this worl functions. But everything has a price and those finding their way 'off the derech' might not do it alone.

The documentary made by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady last around one hour and a half and features the changes taking place into the lives of Luzer, Ari and Etty as they decide to leave behind their closed communities. Filmed over 3 years, it covers dramatic changes taking place into the lives of the participants, such Etty's defeat in court against her ex abusive husband which leads to her being separated from her 7 children and Ari's recovery from drug abuse. 

The community can be a shield for those who are in and a terrible weapon against those who left. I personally know more than one case of a man who left the fold and man given visitation rights to his children that remained with the observant mother because it happened to be part of an important Hasidic family. But if you are a woman without a supportive family - in Etty's case even her own family testified against her - you are lost. The fact that the abuser of Ari is still in a position where he is close to children that he can eventually abuse is outrageous. Those stories are examples of what is actually wrong and sets limits of things that should not be accepted. 

I personally would have expect some wider coverage of individual stories, that may reflect the diversity of reasons and situations why people leave and what happens after. I know many success stories and people that also managed somehow to keep their parental rights and also cases when child abusers were brought to justice. The stories brought to attention are heartbreaking and interesting but especially for someone not familiar with the phenomenon, it may bring a bit of diversity and shape a completely different perspective.  

Book review: Cut me Loose, by Leah Vincent

Oh, I had so many second thoughts telling me NOT to read this book, from a previous mediocre experience with a memoir written by someone in a similar situation to the precaution of not hurrying up to read a book everyone is excessively talking about in the media. But one single second was enough to start reading it and to continue doing so till the last page.

And what a good decision to spend some late hours in the night it was. The book is beautifully written, with open heart and honesty. An emotional and sensitive person, Leah is looking for her own sense of self. Being one of the 11 children of a Yeshivish family she looks for affection, attention and sense in a world of rules and 'fabricated mask superimposed'. On a side note, I saw recently some mentions regarding the 'Yeshivish sect', which is a misunderstanding. Maybe people are too much used with the exotic Satmer stories and cannot go out of this mind frame.

Honest reporting

She doesn't want revenge or to expose people, and is delicate enough to alter details about her family. She is writing about herself, a young Jewish girl that wants to find her own way. It is not easy to continue living within the limits of your small world nowadays without having even a limited contact with the big world and through those interactions arise the tension and the need of sense and stronger identity. Sometimes, you return to your world as long as you can understand or you are explained. If not, the temptation is to keep going and break the chains of family and obedience.

The first reason of conflict is her natural desire to go to college. But she needs to get married and take care of the family and with a good yichus - her father a rabbi and her mother a descendant of the Vilna Gaon, she had a fair amount of chances to get a good match. 

I'd heard myself more than once that a girl should not be so 'klug' if is looking to marry well. And that Torah learning is only for men. But times changed and her family belongs to the mind set of the second WWII generation trying to cope with more observance and limitation from the overall world. The main line against is: College boys and girls mixed and spent their time studying wasteful and immoral ideas'.

Women, including from good yeshivish and hasidic background are learning as much as men and sometimes even earning more than them. There are some limits of professional achievements and the success doesn't go smoothly. 

Too late

'If they would have negotiated with me, I would have been satisfied. Perhaps I never would have left my faith', she says. This long relationship with loneliness that Leah's choices will bring is the result of the lack of compromise. She wanted to be saved from her rebellion, but with love and affection and a little bit of direction. She did not receive it because the parents were either too busy or simply unable to understand what she was looking for. And why. Her father accused her often she is looking for attention, but it is nothing wrong with it. Wrong was her perfect loneliness: without friends, relatives to take care of her and financial support, she is left with her own choices and she is struggling looking for affection, herself and a new sense in life. 

Despite the nightmare of being raped and neglected and abused, and being hunted by suicidal tendencies she made it to Harvard. The tone of her writing is sincere, far from being pathetic and sweetly ironic: 'A Yeshivish girl who could fall for a Rastafarian drug dealer should be bold enough to go to college'. Once accepted to Harvard, she was finally able to tell to herself: 'nobody can tell me I am worthless'. Of course one can live well without Harvard but for her, it was the final societal confirmation that she is good, and smart and can have her own life. Her bet was successful, but she is among the lucky gifted few who did it. 

Loneliness

And again, there is the loneliness one can hardly cope with, religious or not. Most part of the time she was left alone, with her choices and desperation and lack of alternatives because beyond her capacity of imagination. She doesn't know the language and is unable to find friends. She take a small sign of attention a manifestation of love. And when the 'love' is over, she is again left alone.

'The relief I found in cutting my skin helped me cope as I lived my split life of religion and college, modesty and loneliness, hope and memory'. She never keeps learning though and think back about her experiences, she is making new friends and succeed to marry and have a child. Plus, she finished Harvard and creates good writing. There are not bad children, only inexperienced parents and being able to recognize the mistakes and look for permanent improvement is part of the Yiddishkeit. Those who decided to went frei are not worse than the rest, but individuals looking as much as the rest of us for sense and sensibility. Loneliness is horrible and no one has the right to condemn someone to went through it, as Leah did. Helping when needed is a huge responsibility and burden and no one should be left alone.

I strongly recommend the book to anyone, regardless of the degree of observance; there is a lesson to be learned from everything and this honest story has a lot to teach us all.