BY JEFFREY BERMAN
I walked into his Bushwick duplex a little earlier than most of the other guests. My host apologized that everyone was running late. Still, he said, hopefully we would start soon.
I wasn’t offered a drink on arrival. Passover rules forbid drinking before the Seder begins. This was one of the few traditions of the evening that my host chose to follow that night.
Most of the guests at the Seder (apart from a few shiksa girlfriends and myself) used to be Hasidim, but have since left their respective Hasidic communities. They are, as they put it, “Off the Derech (OTD),” a term that literally means “off the path” and is frequently used to describe Modern Orthodox or Hasidic Jews that no longer practice the religion. Many of them write, either for their own blogs, or on a collective website, www.unpious.com.
My host lives in a chic duplex, but the minimalist furniture and stainless steel kitchen appliances hardly distracted attention from the setup in the middle of the living room. Next to the guests smoking in the corner was the Seder table, complete with a large Passover plate and place settings already laid out. Hasidic music, with its whining klezmer clarinet, and light, sharp drumming quietly played on the stereo in the background.
“It’s like having one hand in hot water, and one hand in cold water,” one of the OTD guests said.
Our host that night was Shulem, known in blogging circles as Hasidic Rebel. Seven years ago he was the first of what would later become a string of OTD bloggers, and now edits unpious.com He was expelled from his community over two years ago for spreading “heretical notions,” but this was his first non-traditional Seder.
Shulem led the Seder. He still wears a beard, albeit a trimmer one than before, and his voice carries traces of an Hasidic accent, which to the unfamiliar ear sounds almost Irish.
Like many secular families whose religious celebrations offer little more than a pretext for socializing, this Seder included the parts people liked, and left out the bits that they didn’t. We sang “Dayenu” together; we passed on the Story of the Four Sons. The long hours normally spent at Hasidic Seders conducting elaborate prayers and rituals were instead devoted to chatter, laughter, and drink.
All of the OTDers had a mischievous smile on their faces the whole night, finding additional pleasure in the sheer naughtiness of it all.
Launched in January, unpious.com describes itself as “news, commentary, and writings, by and for Hasidism on the fringe.” Not all of its writers are strictly ex-Hasidic – some are still in the community, while others are Orthodox Jews with a strong connection to Hasidism. Most of the pieces on the site concern the particular challenges of living in, and in some cases leaving, the Hasidic world.
Articles range from a semi-frequent “News Roundup,” a digest of Hasidic-related news and gossip to “Vil’amsburg Diaries: Simchas mit Nachas,” a fictional account of an Hasidic man preparing to have another child. The near-rape account described by Fruma Biegeleisen in “Sholom Bayis” is notable less for its insight into Hasidism than for its shock-value. Other pieces, such as “The Dressing Room,” offer coming-of-age stories that might be as apropos in the secular world as they are in the Hasidic.
For OTDers, online forums such as unpious.com provide an opportunity for reflection on Hasidism, free from the constraints of their former life. For a complete outsider, unpious.com offers a window, however tinted, into the workings of the closed and foreign society in our own backyard.
Shulem first started his blog in 2003. Working as a computer programmer at the time, he started writing for the same reason many bloggers do: boredom.
He was, at the time, firmly ensconced in his Skver community, one of the many Hasidic sects that have formed enclaves around New York City. His earliest posts were nothing more complex or controversial than simple journal entries. But over the first few months, he began to find a voice and write posts more critical of his community. In one such post from April 2003 entitled ”Freedom all the Way,” he argued that the United States need not go to Iraq to fight for religious freedom; they could do the same thing in Brooklyn or Monsey.
There are places, Shulem wrote,
“where freedom is still sorely needed. I’m talking about a place of extreme religious intolerance. A place where dissent is dealt with harshly. Where you can be excommunicated and physically beaten up by religious vigilantes for expressing a heretical opinion, especially if there is a danger of others agreeing with you…”
“You may think I’m talking about Iran, Saudi Arabia, or the former Afghanistan. But no, I’m talking about a place closer to home. I’m talking about the communities of the Chasidic Jews in New York City and Upstate…”
“Like-minded individuals must get together and hold strong against these forces who wish to suppress diversity of opinion. The time has come to liberate the Chasidim!”
Nevertheless, Shulem’s primary goal was to describe Hasidic life, not to decry it. Indeed, he continues to admire the sense of community within Hasidism. The modern world, for example often lacks the generosity taken for granted in the Hasidic world. The Hasidim may have little patience for the wants and needs of those outside their community, but inside there exists a society that cares for the well being of its members. The Hasidic world has multiple social support networks, such as charities, kitchens, even an informal hitchhiking network, all intended to provide for the needs of its population. Secular America questions whether society need ensure the basic welfare of its population; this is taken as given in Hasidic America.
Shulem continued to write throughout 2003 and attention gathered. The Village Voice profiled him in July of that year, and by September his site was averaging 1,200 visitors a day.
However, not all of the attention was positive. Hasidic leaders demanded that he reveal his identity. Online Yiddish forums called for his head. He began to receive threatening emails. His wife, who knew about the blog, was scared that their family was in danger, and Shulem himself became paranoid. He took a two-year hiatus from writing. When he started again, his posts, though equally critical of the Hasidism, were less frequent and less personal.
If Hasidic bloggers have grown in number since the early days of Shulem’s blog, it nevertheless remains an activity dominated by men. The reason for this is simple; fewer women tend to leave Hasidic sects (most of the women writers on unpious.com are not Hasidic, but either Orthodox Jews or not Jewish at all). Couples marry at a young age and women find it hard to leave the social support networks of the community after having children.
But some still do, like “Esther,” (she would not allow her name or blogging pseudonym to be used in this article), who left her Hasidic community about two years ago. Feeling nostalgic and homesick that morning, she went to Shulem’s Seder to be around people who shared her experience and culture.
Like most of the OTDers that I met, Esther by now has completely adopted modern dress. (But not all. In fact, meeting ex-Hasidim that continue to wear Hasidic garb serves as a poignant reminder that giving up not only one’s community, but also a cultural identity, is no small task, even when you no longer share their principles.) The high-collar shirt, shapeless dress, and black loafers of her former life are gone, replaced with a not-too-revealing blouse, snug-fit jeans, and pointed tan heels. As she described her own narrative, it became obvious that her transition into the secular world was a gradual process, of breaking ever more serious rules that govern all facets of Hasidic life.
As a child Esther was a prolific reader and writer, and often snuck out to the public library, where she could read English-language (as opposed to Yiddish) books away from the prying eyes of her conservative family. She kept a diary until she got married at 17; she gave it up in the fear that her (now ex-) husband would find it. But within a few years of getting married she started to write again. She was still living in the community, but had already made a few non-Hasidic friends. They encouraged her to document her life and marriage through a blog.
Her pieces began to circulate around the blogosphere. The attention terrified Esther. In the tight-knit communities that comprise Hasidism, even small displays of independence could result in retribution. Esther’s family would suffer if the community discovered that she wrote a blog, or that she also snuck out of the community from time to time in jeans and heels. Almost certainly her children would not be admitted to school, and her husband could lose his job.
But she also had the protection of internet-provided anonymity, and the spotlight inspired her to write more.
“Shtreimel” (he asked that I refer to him by his anonymous blogging handle), along with Shulem, co-created unpious.com, but he wasn’t at the Seder. Shtreimel, though a non-believer, is still an active member of his Hasidic community, so he had to spend the holiday with his family. We met a week or so after Passover.
Shtreimel began blogging during Shulem’s two-year hiatus from writing. He began his blog, “A Hassid [sic] and a Heretic,” as a journal. He didn’t write for anyone in particular, remembered Shtreimel, and his blog documented only mundane occurrences, such as a toothache. But it slowly turned into a larger project when he started to notice the comments he was receiving and realized that people were interested in his life and experiences as he stepped slowly into the secular world.
The life of a writer was difficult at the beginning. Shtreimel, like most Hasidim, received only a superficial secular education. Until they are teenagers, Hasidic children generally attend school for nine hours a day, seven of which are spent learning about religion and scripture. English and math are squeezed into the remaining two hours. As Shtreimel’s posts became more elaborate, he needed to constantly learn more and more English.
Like Shulem and Esther, Shtreimel finds the Hasidic lifestyle suffocating. Thousands of rigorous rules dictate every aspect of life, and anyone who deviates from the norm immediately becomes an outcast. But unlike Shulem or Esther, Shtreimel sees no reason to leave Hasidism. “When one life bores you, you simply move to the other.”
Rabbi Mayer Schiller, a teacher at Yeshiva High School in Manhattan was not born Hasidic, but has spent his adult life trying to follow Hasidic principles. Now in his 60s, he maintains connections with both the Skver and Rachmastrivka branches of Hasidism, though he has refrained from joining any particular community.
According to Schiller, relatively few people leave Hasidism for good. However, there are many people that very unhappily remain in their communities. A lack of religious faith cannot unequivocally explain why a person would choose to leave Hasidism. This may play a role, but the social ills that exist within Hasidic communities are more to blame.
Hasidic leaders, said Schiller, no longer address the spiritual or physical needs of their communities. Men are subjected to a rigorous life of academic studies, which leaves them poorly equipped to earn a living. More importantly, almost no one can receive individual attention in a society where most couples have ten or twelve children.
Esther took her first steps out of Hasidism when she was a child running off to the local library. This wasn’t the case with Shulem. He was deeply religious, and like most Hasidic men, married at 18 and started a family. He had five children and a steady job as a computer programmer before beginning to doubt the fundamentals of Hasidic life.
The religious aspects of Hasidism, from the long hours in Yeshiva to the daily rituals, had been deeply important to Shulem. Even today he misses the passionate debates that men have over Talmudic passages. Many of his early interactions with the outside world came through attempts to integrate religious faith with the logic of the modern world. But he began to reject religious doctrine, and found it increasingly difficult to live a life centered around it.
For years he tried to convince himself that he could remain in Hasidism until all of his children were married off, but this choice soon became irrelevant. Local leaders in New Square, NY, an Hasidic enclave an hour north of New York City where Shulem lived, kicked him out of town on charges of heresy. He lived in Monsey, a neighboring Hasidic city, for about two years while going through divorce proceedings. He finally left Hasidism for good last September, and around the same time moved to Bushwick.
Despite his friend’s plunge, Shtreimel doesn’t plan to follow suit. “Leaving [the community] is a drastic step,” said Shtreimel. It would mean severing all of his previous social ties, and almost certainly a divorce. He would be cut off from his children (since leaving, Shulem is by now completely estranged from three of his five children and sees the other two only a few times a year. Esther was able to maintain custody of hers).
Until his hand is forced, Shtreimel will embrace his double life. Hasidism is the only culture he has ever known, and despite its many faults and his personal lack of faith, he loves it. But he is equally thrilled when he sheds the full black suit he normally wears and steps completely into the Goy world, filled with pot, parties, and Shiksas.
When we met for drinks at a bar in Carroll Gardens, he had already changed from a suit into a dull gray sweater. With his beard gently folded up into itself and his sidecurls pinned behind his ears, he more closely resembled a middle-aged, slightly overweight, literature professor than the Shul-attending, husband and father that he was just a few hours before. Dueling loyalties to Hasidism and modernity may compete within him, but Shtreimel seems to relish the fear of getting caught.
Nevertheless, his double life comes with its share of worries. His lack of faith makes his marriage difficult for both him and his wife, as he recently expressed in a piece on unpious.com, “A Gitten Chodesh:”
“She’s trying to hold this house together. It’s not easy. It cannot be easy to have a partner in parenting with ideas so contradictory to everything you believe in. A Husband that is sure as hell going to hell. She tries hard to at least have the kids directed to heaven. And then there’s me, not going to shul on time.”
However, his biggest fear was what will happen to his children as they grow up. While he tries to expose his children to modern society when possible, taking them out of the community entirely is impossible. Their mother would never allow it.
He comforts himself with the fact those in the community with power (as well as his wife) already know about the double life he lives. They – his wife and community – are willing to leave him alone as he maintains the appearance of a devout Hasid. Jokingly, he suggests that everything should be okay as long as he can contain himself from driving his car through the neighborhood on Saturday, and blowing cigarette smoke in his neighbors’ faces.
But as the children get older the community may take steps to ensure that they are not brainwashed by, as Shtreimel describes it, “their father’s poison.” Shtreimel, for now, is able to handle the dual existence, but they may not. They may suffer. Should his children be threatened with expulsion from school, Shtreimel will have no choice but to leave his community entirely.
Esther, for now, has yet to write for unpious.com. Instead, she continues to carry on with her own blog. She continues to draw inspiration, both good and bad, from her former life, using writing as a cleansing process. Acknowledged and unacknowledged power structures dominate every facet of Hasidic life: Rabbinical families over less prestigious families, husbands over wives, mothers-in-law over daughters-in-law. “This process [of writing] is a way of feeling strong,” said Esther.
Though she eventually wants to write an publish an autobiography, Esther is also quick to admit that however interesting her story may be, the novelty of an ex-Hasidic woman will eventually wear off. Nevertheless, she wants to develop a career as a writer, and for now considers herself “lucky to have a story. Lucky and unlucky, both.”
When I met Shtreimel it had been two weeks since he had last posted an article on unpious.com. He typically works sixty hours a week, chiefly in real estate, but also in other businesses as well. Nearly all Hasidim receive government benefits in some form or another, be it food stamps or Section 8, but feeding a large family is still a challenge. This leaves little time for writing.
Shtreimel wants to write more, but fears that he may have run out of material. “I guess that’s the problem when you write about one topic,” He said.
He tried writing fiction, but with limited success. Shrugging his shoulders, Shtreimel felt that “I can only write about stuff I know, and I know about Hasidism.”
Shulem and Shtreimel first developed the idea of a group blog about a year ago, hoping to provide an outlet for material that otherwise could not make it into the mainstream media. Shulem fears that they have a lack of writers, but unpious.com constantly receives new submissions.
It’s difficult to understand how well sites such as unpious.com provide an accurate account of life in Hasidism. A recent short story, “Office Girls,” by Chani Mink was soundly attacked for having poorly represented the educational level of Hasidic Women. The story included a Hasidic girl from Williamsburg, who had never heard of a volcano. Readers blasted the piece, noting that while the education of women was a problem within the Hasidic community, Mink had no right to resort to such exaggerations.
“The site’s raison d’etre is for Hasidim on the fringe,” said Shulem. But as “Office Girls” demonstrated, does the obvious resentment of their writers to Hasidism cloud their judgment? Arguably, unpious.com’s first responsibility is to their primary readership – ex-Hasids – but it must make acquire some sense of impartiality to maintain credibility. If not, unpious.com runs the risk of developing the same insularity that it was designed to combat.
Rabbi Schiller has read many ex-Hasidic blogs, and thought that these forums pose a “fun and intellectual personal challenge.” Nevertheless, Schiller said, “they are a little too angry, and need a little more sympathy to those whom they criticize.” Schiller himself wants to see reform in Hasidic communities, and thought these online forums could stand to present some constructive criticism of Hasidism, rather than a constant discussion of its faults.
Shulem, as the site’s administrator, has tried to solicit articles that provide a more balanced view of the conflict between Hasidism and the secular world, but with minimal success. “It’s a difficult task. Our readership is admittedly overwhelmingly anti-Hasidic, any such work would have to at least make a passing attempt at refuting some of the more predictable arguments [made against Hasidism],” said Shulem. At this point, he continued, “they’ve pretty much heard it all.”
Collaboration up until now, has worked out well for Shulem. It’s provided a slightly more legitimate platform for publishing his own material without having to deal with the hassle of editors. The administration of unpious.com takes up a good deal of his time, but, whether it’s publishable or not, Shulem tries to find time to write. Recently, he’s taken to writing lots of short stories in Yiddish.
It’s unclear what the future holds for Shulem. He would love to write a book, but with only a cursory secular education, fears he may lack the necessary skills.
He doesn’t know what may happen in the future, but for now remains content in at least having the opportunity. Had he stayed in the Hasidic community, all doors to a creative life would have been closed. “I may very well die without having become famous,” he said with a grin.