YU Does Something Normal for Their BTs

Like most BT (baal teshuvah) males I know with a more typical American liberal arts focus and who are not descendants of Holocaust survivor families, I found Shabbat at YU a miserable experience. I strongly encourage normative American Jews who become Orthodox to attend a regular college campus. And I am still waiting to find out if there is any change planned in forcing the BTs (and only the BTs) to wake up futz fetag by grading them for attending shachris.

Never the less, Yeshiva College has done one thing right.

For the first time a month ago, The Commentator reported,

On the weekend of October 26, Mechinah held the program’s first co-ed shabbaton. Altogether, 40 men and 24 women from the two programs spent Shabbat together in Englewood, NJ. The 40 men represent the largest turnout for a Mechinah shabbaton to date.

This is a great development, and I applaud this direction. BTs do not go to the same schools or summer camps like regular Modern Orthodox students at YU, and they need a way to meet and spend time with their own in a mixed gender environment. And with all due respect to the Modern Orthodox, we soul searching Jews from secular families have little to do with their bad music, their reflexive conservative politics, their obsession with Israel and only Israel, their materialism, their preference for the worst blockbusters, and their ceaseless babbling about Torah U’ Mada. If given the choice between a typical right-wing Modern Orthodox Shabbat dinner with all its inanity and being subjected to a far-Left, virulently anti-Zionist panel, I would choose the latter, because at least they would be kind enough to recognize me as dangerous force instead of a weirdo who doesn’t follow sports.

Still…after helping out some friends today in Washington Heights, I saw Rabbi Blau, and though we didn’t stop and chat, we exchanged nods, and I have to admit, it was really nice to see him. He’s a great rabbi. I even felt strange softness towards YU for a second…

But then it passed.

Also, I recently had some static with getting them to send my transcript. It was a real pain in the ass. So in this magnanimous state with a curled lip, I just want to throw it out there that if there are any BTs who are having problems in YU, and the administration is not responding to your plight, you can always email me and let me know what is happening, and I will see what I can do to expose this situation. Because even if large swaths of YU treat you like dirt because anyway you don’t “fit the mold,� they will respond to your complaints when they surface in the public view. Remember, the vast sum of their money comes from Jews like us. Not like them. They mistreat you at their own peril.

My offer only goes for BTs. If you are a regular FFB who attends YU and has issues, go somewhere else. I have no general issue with YU, and wish them well, and would prefer to not think about the place.

So…does anyone know if they are still waking up the BTs for shachris?