Category — BT

I have long railed against the poverty created by the haredi baal teshuvah movement. When in public, in front of liberal and secular Jews, many insist they don’t know what I am talking about. They have not heard of this problem in any significant way. Maybe one or two individuals…but certainly not generally. After all, why should a hardline against secular education and in Israel–against the work ethic — possibly lead to poverty?

But when out of earshot, the frum say something quite different. And because the lowly BT does not have the nepotistic network of the frum world, he may not only become as poor as the average haredi, he may become still poorer.

Jonathan Rosenblum writes on Cross-Currents,

Last year, I wrote a column about Rabbi Aharon Betzalel, who was struggling to keep open a Talmud Torah in Kadima for children of ba’alei teshuva. At the time, he was reduced to personally collecting every night the money for gas to bring the rebbes to school the next morning and cleaning the floors himself.

Yet all he needed to put the Talmud Torah on a sound financial footing was enough money to make improvements in the physical plant necessary to gain recognition from the Education Ministry. Twenty thousand dollars from two or three donors who had never before heard of Rabbi Betzalel did the trick. Their contributions were leveraged to produce government funding of many times that amount annually.

Already, there are 140 students registered for next year, as compared to 80 this year. Rabbi Betzalel’s biggest worry is no longer how he will make it through the day, but where to find 30,000 shekels for new furniture to accommodate the huge jump in the students.

These children of baal teshuvah are indeed in dire straights, as so many other children of baalei teshuvah are.

Please help them. Help us stop this haredi machine towards poverty. For the haredi-kiruv machine grows every day. Each slithery tentacle must be amputated from a high school or college or trip to Israel program one by one. And when it grows back, it must be amputated again.

In more reaction to the Toby Katz debacle, Dov Bear weighs in and notes,

According to our Tobahlina, only “sour, dour, picky people” protest when their children are shunned, kept out of the best schools, or denied high caliber shiduchim. Only “difficult” people object when they are treated in shul like second-class citizens and subjected to other forms of condescension. “Sweet, outgoing, pleasant, talented, easy-going” people take the abuse and marginalization in stride! And some even ask for second helpings!

Sounds great, right? Well, then, Dark Light is accepting applications.

The BTs have not listened to Toby Katz, and that is unfortunate. Toby Katz is mammash like Moshe Rabbeinu, and the BTs are complaining like the eruv rav they are.

Mrs. Katz is rightly justified in her wrath, and writes,

OK, for you dyslexics out there, let’s read this slowly and carefully. Did you get that phrase “one major factor”? Let’s look at it again. *ONE* major factor.

And did you get that bit about “In all the articles and comments…..”? Huh? Huh? See, that means “There have been a LOT OF ARTICLES AND COMMENTS and they raised a lot of points and I don’t have to rehash EVERY SINGLE POINT EVERYONE EVER MADE before I can add one more comment of my own!”

I just wanted to add ONE factor, one factor that nobody else mentioned. I did not want to, and did not need to, repeat what everybody else has already hashed and rehashed ad infinitum, about everything that is wrong with Orthodox Jews. It’s coming out of my ears already. Got that? OK everybody now go away, all this negativity is totally getting on my nerves.

–
To my BT bretheren: You don’t have to take this abuse! You can leave the prison of B’nai Niddah/Baal Teshuvah that Toby’s father and others of his ilk have built for you. The doors may look locked, but they are not. You can just walk out the door. Just push it open…you can walk right out. It looks scary, and it is…but you can leave this community as much as you want to. Go Modern, go secular, but for crying out loud, who needs this? The promise of “nachas” moments aren’t worth this kind of treatment and contempt…make your escape…it’s not too late.

Toby Katz, the daughter of the late Rabbi Bulman, who was the mashgiach at Ohr Somayach in the 70s, wants you BT people to stop complaining all the time about not being accepted by the FFBs – FFBs…you know, the Fundamentalist from Birth folk.

Mrs. Katz writes on Cross Currents,

In all the articles and comments about whether Ba’alei Teshuva are fully accepted in Frum from Birth communities, one major factor I haven’t seen mentioned is the character of the individual BT. This applies also to gerim (converts). I know a convert who is a sweet, outgoing, pleasant, talented, easy-going person, and she finds the charedi community to be delightful and wonderful. Everyone is good, warm, intelligent, altogether admirable. I know another convert who is sour, dour, prickly and altogether a difficult person, and she finds the Orthodox community to be cold, unwelcoming, uncaring and exclusionary. And both of these women formed their impressions while living in the same neighborhood! Fancy that.

Well, surprisingly, not everyone is very happy with Mrs. Katz. In fact, there are a lot of complaints, including some angry at Cross Currents moderators for not allowing their comments through that to rebut Mrs. Katz. Their complaints are not getting through, but some of their complaints about their complaints not getting through are getting through, and…my gosh, these bnai niddah baal teshuvah people really do complain a lot!

And look – even someone claiming to be Miriam Shear is complaining…remember Ms. Shear? She’s the maniac who went crazy when the nice haredi men tried unsuccessfully to help her be like Rosa Parks and sit in the back of the bus.

Why won’t these all these people stop complaining and accept their lot at the back of the bus? They are so lucky to be there…so fortunate that the Dark Lights of kiruv have taken them out of the slavery of Egypt that the secular world truly is…and instead of eternal gratitude and simcha, they have so many complaints.

Fancy that.

These haredi-BT stories all end the same. None end with dissatisfaction, resentment, and fallout. Absolutely not. Whatever issues are acknowledged, the arc doesn’t change.

5 Towns Jewish Times writes,

Sondra’s Search, by Ester Katz Silvers, is a beautifully written story detailing the complex and wonderful path back home towards Jerusalem for a young unaffiliated Jewish woman born and raised in Kansas. The author explores how this young non-Orthodox girl manages to successfully find hope, happiness, and a husband in her personal search for meaning.

Notice the “back home” to Jerusalem. Notice also that she is born in Kansas. What do we know from this absurd language? We know that the 5 Towns Jewish Times is an annoying frummie paper.

So, you got it? Do you need to review it once more?

No problem. Since it was too subtle the first time in the first paragraph, 5 Towns Jewish Times will explain once more how it is to be for every BT.

“In public high school, Sondra started out in a completely non-Jewish environment. She started in Kansas, in a non-Orthodox traditional family, and eventually established a frum home in the Land of Israel.”

This post will be used as a link in the future repeatedly. I am explaining and translating all Hebrew terms so that this post can be easily understood by all.

One of the issues that we in the secular and liberal Jewish world need to be more honest, open, and forthright about is our position on the false dichotomy that the ultra-Orthodox and RWMO (right-wing Modern Orthodox) “outreach professionals�? hurl at us in order to justify the outreach preference for guiding young Jews into fundamentalism and corresponding socio-economic devolvement.

Forget for a moment that there are, of course, many other possibilities even within Orthodox outreach. Forget that the mere fact that this false dichotomy is offered is indicative of the horrific reality that many outreach workers simply do not value the functionalism of our youth even one iota, but rather, ONLY value their level of religiousity. Forget the profound level of utter contempt for Jews who grow up outside of Orthodoxy that this signals. Let’s just look at the inherent problem with this false dichotomy.

The game goes like this: When complaints are raised as to the methods and trajectories offered by outreach organizations to our youth, the outreach proponents respond with a question.

“Would you rather your child be ultra-Orthodox, with all it’s problems, or would you rather your child marry out, and their descendants be gentile?�?

The goal of this question is to force the secular/liberal Jew to concede that ultra-Orthodoxy is better, or at least, to back off and admit uncertainty, the latter response still validating the position of the outreach recruiters.

This process can be seen in TM’s comment on The Kvetcher last December when asked this by a Bitzy P. TM responded,

“Hmmmm, intermarriage or fundamentalism? That’s a tough one. Seriously.�?

This is not the accurate response for most of us in the secular and liberal Jewish world.

The more accurate response for us is clear, and should be simple to remember.

We would absolutely prefer our own children to marry out than become fundamentalists (ultra-Orthodox). It is a foreign lifestyle, and not one we would advocate to our children. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of secular and liberal Jews know the risks (Jewishly) of living their lives as they do, but they continue to do so, because they value other things more. That isn’t my issue, except to note that this proves it is all the more obvious that they don’t view ultra-Orthodoxy as an appropriate lifestyle when they won’t even bother to live a Modern Orthodox lifestyle, despite the positive effects it has on Jewish continuity and endogamy.

So when the prozelytizers press us on this false dichotomy, they should be dealt with swiftly, decisively, and appropriately.

And anyone who offers the false dichotomy of intermarriage versus fundamentalism as a defense for advocating fundamentalism and downward socio-economic mobility has revealed their own preference. They should not be trusted, and should be kept far away from our youth,

Such people are not to be trusted in any capacity with our kids.

Again, to be crystal clear: Given the false choice between kids becoming ultra-Orthodox or say, Unitarian, the answer is absolutely Unitarian. If I had kids, and knew that they and their descendants would become right-wing ultra-Orthodox if they remained in the fold, I would convert them to Unitarianism myself.

Any questions?

If you or someone you know is in the mechinah program, please ask them if they will be willing to contact me for a story. I don’t know where it will be published yet, but it is my intention to do a story on YU’s grading of morning prayer services — for BTs, and only for 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?

If you listen to any lecture about honoring ones father and mother, the kiruvniks will insist that they encourage a BT to respect his secular/liberal parents. It’s quite debatable if they do actually encourage this…but FFBs themselves often do not respect our parents. In fact, they actively disrespect them right in front of us.

As Annie noted,

“The straw that broke the camel’s back though, was the disrespect shown to my parents. All of this “it must be so hard for you to go home�? and similar statements disparaging their choices. I love my parents, they have been nothing but supportive of me, and they are much better Jews than some of these frummies. They don’t judge people by their observance, are open-minded, give tzedakah, they CERTAINLY don’t cheat on their taxes, are good patriots (as opposed to voting in the US based on a foreign state)… I could go on and on.�?

Look, we could all go on and on about the problem with frummies. And we will. Oh, yes.

But for now let’s stick to the point about FFBs who think it “must have been hard�? to have grown up in a traditional secular environment, where we often look to Judaism for morality but not halacha. Where we have an intense respect for secular knowledge, and often a love of the fine arts. Where we have a “don’t ask, don’t tell�? policy in the occasional Chinese restaurant. Where we celebrate most of the holidays, but never have the *joy* of a three day yontiff. And where we are constantly reading and debating, though not fighting about things like what makes a lemon-like fruit beautiful. Where we are taught to be sexually responsible, but not shomer negiah.

All I can say to my FFB readers who pity us and feel so bad for us is…I guess it sounds more horrible than it actually is. So if you want to cry for the BT who (nebach) grew up in such a horrible environment that is “hard�? for us, don’t you cry in front of us. Jerk.

And to all BTs reading this…do not take that FFB-er than thou trip. Stay away from such people. Do not go to their homes for shabbos. Do not eat their food. Do what Annie did — lay into a tirade about why your parents are actually better than most frummies, and let them know that it is preciesely the contemptuous attitudes like theirs that make you rethink your choice to “live Orthodox�? (as opposed to “becoming frum,�? don’t say it like that, gives that lifestyle choice too much credit) in the first place.

Unlike Rabbi Shafran, who absurdly attempted to minimize the concerns of ben niddahism I raised without identifying it explicitly (of course), and unlike a lot of the frum commentators who denied this was even a real concern, and unlike Steve Brizel and some others from Beyondbt who insist that “The Gedolim�? have mostly nullified the impact of ben niddahism, Rabbi Josh Waxman, a YU rabbi, has addressed the issue of ben niddahism, which he concedes “is problematic for allowing baalei teshuva to marry.�?

Unfortunately, when someone in the Orthodox world like Rabbi Waxman emerges who deals with such an issue honestly and openly, it is such a rare occasion that I think we should all stop whatever we are doing, stand up, and give a loud cheer of support.

Really, a foundation should be established to support and honor those few Orthodox rabbis who publicly treat such issues with intellectual honesty and candor, without the apologetics that insults our intelligence, or cynically exploiting the reality that many secular and liberal Jews are not educated in these matters. Perhaps a nominal cash incentive of $50 could be given away in such instances. It would probably cost no more than $500 annually, at least at the beginning, and if it were started under an existing foundation, the administrative costs would be nominal.