In one of Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities lives a yeshiva student, married with children, who struggles to leave his religious universe and move into the secular world. Once in a while he takes the subway to Manhattan, visits a museum, watches a movie, peeks at the forbidden culture. Trying to feel temporal, he removes his yarmulke when in the city, but he still wears the black suit, the long beard and the traditional tassel. He appears as ultra-orthodox as the next guy, but sees himself as a model atheist. “It’s the funniest thing,” said an acquaintance who himself completed the transformation from an ultra-religious Jew to a secular person.
The above situation illustrates the complexity of leaving ultra-orthodox communities in New York. On top of the enormous challenges and identity crisis this metamorphosis entails, unbelievers have to face life in a big and difficult metropole, often without any support, advice or outside assistance. Unlike in Israel, where there are support centers and organizations for such people, as well as a clear division between the religious and secular, the phenomenon here is strictly underground and the boundaries between an atheist and a Jew (orthodox or reform or traditionalist) are sketchy.
Take Shmuel (his real name was withheld at his request), 28, who divides his life between Crown Heights and SoHo. The Lubavitch neighborhood in Brooklyn is where he grew up, currently lives and has family and friends. SoHo is where he works, hangs out, enjoys the art world and the temptations of secularism. He wears Tefillin daily, but lives with a woman; eats the Shabbat dinner with his parents, but goes out to clubs afterward. His appearance reflects his condition: with unkempt long hair, a wispy beard and a white buttoned-up shirt overhanging his T-shirt. He looks like a mix of a yeshiva student and a hipster.
“When I close my eyes,” Shmuel said, “I still see myself with the traditional beard, sitting with the rabbi. I think I would have been happier if I was religious. The true life is of the Torah and Jewish Law, but it doesn’t seem appropriate right now.” He cannot keep up the Hassidic lifestyle, despises yeshiva studies and feels pity for those who dedicate their lives to the faith. Sometimes he ponders moving to Manhattan and abandoning religion completely. Yet he remains in the gray area, in-between, and undecided. “I think it is because I’m a wimp,” he said.
There are many like him. In contrast to these rebels one can find those who are very observant, live in their communities but whose faith dried out and they seek a way out, sometimes for years. Finally, there are those who made the tough decision, left their homes, forsook their closed communities and began a long and wrenching journey of integration.
Malkie Schwartz, 22, left the Lubavitch community some three years ago and described major challenges: the guilt, the distance from family and friends and the culture shock, which is particularly overwhelming in New York City. “I thought I was insane,” she recalls. “I thought I was crazy, because like everyone, I was so proud of my faith. Here I was going to throw it all away.”
The reasons for leaving ultra-orthodox lives are diverse and include philosophical doubts, boredom from the insular existence and competitive studies, and wilting to the temptations of the outside world. The process of losing faith, or the interest in religious life, is often lengthy and tormenting.
Isaac (real name withheld at his request), 33, who grew up in an ultra-orthodox town in upstate New York, says that as an adolescent he knew that religious life was not for him. “I was very bored and very curious,” he said. “This is a very boring life, as you can imagine. I was feeling empty inside. I wanted something more.” By then he was already married, but still began to secretly attend college and after his wife left him, at 24, he finally abandoned the religion. Despite the ensuing difficulties, he says, “I did not regret it for a second.”
In Schwartz’s case, when attending a seminary in Israel she began to wonder about the great number of restrictions. Her questions reached a boiling point after she returned to Crown Heights, on the eve of Simchat Torah, just before she was to go to the synagogue for celebrations. “The truth was that I am very ambivalent about the Torah, I don’t know what I feel about it,” she recalled. “Why should I feel happy about the Torah? Who said I must be happy? I don’t know. Maybe there are people who don’t want to go dancing in shul? Maybe I just want to cry.” After three long hours of soul-searching, she dialed a nonobservant relative. Once she broke this one holiday law of not using any devices, the path to abandon all 613 Mitzvoth was paved.
I asked whether New York City, with all its lures and opportunities, serves as a catalyst to the process. The almost unanimous reply was no. “If you’re wearing Hasidic glasses,” explained Schwartz, who now lives in Astoria and is majoring in English at Hunter College, “you walk on Fifth Avenue but don’t see anything. You don’t see a thing because you don’t want to see it. It’s like nonkosher food. It’s not something you’d want to eat. It’s disgusting. Why would you want to participate in it?”
The hardships of those who leave the faith begin with trivial matters of what to wear and how to act, and end with the more mundane obstacles, like finding a job and an apartment. “It was crazy,” recalled Schwartz, remembering her process while sitting on the third floor of a Barnes &Nobles bookstore overlooking Union Square. “The first time I wore pants, the first time I went to a movie, the first time I talked with a boy. It can kill you. I’m still in shock at times.”
Isaac, who also attends Hunter College and resides in Crown Heights due to financial reasons, says the economic conditions of many among the heretic population are rough. “We weren’t educated about the need to work, but about the need to study, so many of us go to college,” he said. In addition, many don’t speak English, but Yiddish, and never received secular education, which makes their integration more difficult. “I always wanted a support group,” Isaac said, echoing the opinion of many like him.
“Basically, nobody’s going to help you. You’re out and you’re on your own,” said a man who left an ultra-orthodox community almost 20 years ago and still insists that his name or any other information about him not be published. “You can lose yourself easily, both mentally and practically. I had no idea how hard it was going to be. I had no idea about the turmoil.”
In an attempt to assist those in similar situations, Schwartz is establishing a nonprofit organization to aid renegades of ultra-orthodox religions, not exclusively Jews. “There are many differences” among different faiths, she said, “but regarding the guilt—there’s no difference. And usually the family issue is the same, which is a part of the guilt.”
The mission statement of the organization, called Footsteps, defines the problems of the people it attempts to help: “They most often lack the support of their families who, at best, are critical of them and, at worst, have ostracized them. These individuals are extremely vulnerable and prone to emotional distress. In some cases, having no experience in the secular world, they lose themselves to all that was unknown or unfamiliar, namely sex, drugs and alcohol abuse.”
“We’re not trying to push anyone,” said Schwartz. “It’s here if somebody wants it.” She intends to offer tutoring, help in job hunting and guidance about school admissions. There’ll be support groups, social nights and simple advice that will reflect the tendency within this community to befriend each other, knowing full well how tough the struggle can be.
Among the unbelievers I spoke with, distinctions are more common than similarities. Some observe many laws, others don’t even fast during Yom Kippur. Others follow alternative beliefs and customs, like meditation. Some feel comfortable in Brooklyn’s orthodox communities while others won’t consider residing there. But they all radiate a sense of insecurity, tentativeness, and a deep and profound confusion.
“You know what,” Schwartz says. “I think it’s something we take pride in because it’s something we couldn’t feel before, confused. And if we did, it showed that something is wrong with us or we felt paranoid about it or it was a problem we had to fix.”
Needless to say, there are no available statistics about the size of this phenomenon in the United States. What’s clear is that more men leave than women, a result of the inferior position and lack of opportunities for women in religious communities. “They get married much younger,” said Schwartz. “If you’re not out by the time you’re 19—good luck to you because you’re on the way to your wedding party.”
Almost always, excruciating doubts linger long after the decision to leave has been made. “I have regrets every day,” the former yeshiva student who insisted on anonymity remarked during a phone conversation. “I think that most of my life I didn’t know what I was doing, I made a lot of mistakes. I don’t know how many will agree with me, but I think that most people who have done it—if they would have known how tough it’s going to be, wouldn’t have done it.”
And even if this group of people will have more support in the future, the challenges will remain, mistakes will be made, feelings of guilt and regret will resurface. Many of them will pray that their existential questions had not arisen in the first place. Then they would remind themselves that their faithlessness was beyond their control and that in actuality they probably never had any choice.
