This Organization Helps People Leave the Orthodox Jewish Community

Photo credit: Mike Lee
Photo credit: Mike Lee

From Oprah Magazine

Imagine you’d never seen The Wizard of Oz. Or gotten sunburned at the beach. Or twisted apart an Oreo and made tooth tracks in the filling. Or pawed at your tenth-grade boyfriend in the back of a Honda Civic. Imagine you’d never learned how fun it was to stay at the Y-M-C-A, or taken scissors to your jeans to make short-short cutoffs. Or shaded in the bubbles on an SAT with a freshly sharpened number 2 pencil. Imagine you’d never heard the song “Imagine.” Or driven a car. Or celebrated Thanksgiving. Or learned that dinosaurs once existed.

If you were Haredi-raised in ultra-Orthodox Judaism-this could be your experience. You grew up in an intensely insular, highly restrictive community where interacting with the outside world is rare. Despite being raised in America, you may have learned Yiddish as a first language. You were taught that God created the earth about 6,000 years ago. In your schoolbooks, anything involving evolution, sex, or reproduction was likely redacted with a black marker, if the pages hadn’t been ripped out entirely. You may have been married to a virtual stranger at age 18 and expected to bear and rear as many as 12 children. And if it ever occurred to you to try to leave this confining world, you probably shoved that thought away.

“Going OTD”-off the derech, or path, in Hebrew-isn’t like relocating from the city to the suburbs or flipping from Republican to Democrat. Leaving makes you an apikores, a heretic. A pariah. It means you stand to be shunned by your family, ostracized by your friends, denied custody of your children, or all of the above. You might as well be boarding a one-way rocket to another planet, so terrifying and total is the leap. In the outside world, the isolation and disorientation can be all-consuming, even deadly. In recent years, at least two former Haredim, defeated by the process of trying to leave ultra-Orthodoxy behind, have taken their own lives.

But the apikorsim do have one thing working in their favor: an oasis that, since 2003, has given more than 1,500 of them practical support and vital guidance to make the perilous transition.

Located in a downtown Manhattan skyscraper (the address is kept hidden to protect clients’ safety), Footsteps’ office is infused with the buzzy, affirming cheeriness of a college dorm. The lounge is dominated by a pair of black leather sofas and a flat-screen; wire baskets of DVDs contain everything from Blazing Saddles to an educational film called Laugh and Learn About Childbirth. A cabinet holds a robust collection of board games including Monopoly and Taboo, and the walls are covered with collages and paintings that favor symbols of confinement and freedom: a blindfolded woman, paper butterflies escaping a frame.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz
Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz

A modest lending library offers classics of all types: The Hobbit, two copies of The Scarlet Letter, a near-complete set of Sue Grafton’s alphabet detective novels (though someone needs to solve the mystery of where “C” Is for Corpse disappeared to). A tray bears a stack of stickers with the defiant phrase on my own derech in chunky capital letters; a canister of condoms is perched near pamphlets explaining how to use them. There’s a well-lit nook with desktop computers that Footsteps clients-known as members-are welcome to use three nights a week; for those who still live in ultra-Orthodox homes, many of which don’t have computers, it may be one of the few places they can access the internet or type up a résumé.

There’s also a tiny room where social workers meet with newbies; a dish of plastic toys sits on the small table between them, for anxious hands that need to fiddle. To become a part of this brave new world, members pay a one time $25 fee, then sign an agreement stating they won’t share information about any other members or out them for being associated with the organization.

Footsteps’ founder, Malkie Schwartz, was born into an ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch community in Brooklyn. The eldest of nine, she was taught to be an aidel maidel (sweet girl) and follow the rules: wear modest clothes that covered her from clavicle to knee with tights underneath, say different prayers depending on whether she was eating fruit or noodles, kiss the mezuzah on the doorframe every time she entered or left the house. But at 17, Schwartz began to feel mounting anxiety about her future in the community; that year, during the holiday Simchat Torah, it felt like she was watching the celebrations through a dense pane of glass.

“I realized how separate I felt from everyone else,” she says. “I was like, I don’t feel joy about living according to the Torah. I don’t feel a connection, and I can’t force one.” Then, like many Lubavitch girls, she went to Israel for a year, to study at seminary. But instead of cementing her faith, the experience revealed its cracks. By the time she turned 19, the mental shift was nearly complete.

“I knew I’d be expected to start having kids very quickly once I married,” she says, “and I took the responsibility of bringing children into that world very seriously. I thought, Do I know enough about what else is out there to say that this is the road I want to go down?” The answer, she realized, was no. A few months after returning from Israel, Schwartz, amid great “internal torture and torment,” moved in with her non-Orthodox grandmother and enrolled at Hunter College in Manhattan. “I had no clue what was going to become of me,” she says, “beyond the potential loss of my relationships with everyone I loved-everyone who shaped who I was.”

Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz
Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz

Wanting to sort out her turbulent feelings, Schwartz tapped into a whisper network to find other people like her. She arranged covert meet-ups at coffee shops-even once on a subway platform. “There was so much shame,” she says. “But after talking with a few people, I thought, Why are we making this so difficult for ourselves?” She reserved a room at Hunter and asked a social worker to lead a discussion group for any former Orthodox who were interested. About 25 came the first month, most in their 20s and 30s, and predominantly men. The majority had already left the community, but a few still living as Haredim came in high-crowned black hats or the requisite wigs. They spoke of why they’d left, or wanted to: the hypocrisy they felt they’d witnessed, the beliefs that didn’t resonate with them, the education they hadn’t been able to pursue. With that meeting, Footsteps was born. “I formed what I needed,” says Schwartz. “A community of other people who understood.”

Photo credit: Courtesy of  Julia Jerusalmi Henig
Photo credit: Courtesy of Julia Jerusalmi Henig

Footsteps now offers drop-in support groups centered around PTSD and substance abuse, as well as healthy relationships training that covers topics like sexual assault and harassment. But mental health resources are just the beginning of what the newly secular might need. Ultra-Orthodox schools may not conform to state educational standards-meaning students could be denied a high school diploma-so Footsteps helps members prepare for their GED. It also offers college counseling and scholarships, with more than $1.5 million granted so far. (The group is funded by secular and Jewish foundations and private donors; according to Footsteps, Amy Schumer gave $10,000 last year.)

Members can also reach out to Footsteps for help landing an internship or acing a job interview. If a member finds herself desperately needing money for groceries or utility bills, she can ask Footsteps for emergency funding. And there’s a Go for It! grant, which offers up to $500 for members interested in driving lessons, art classes, language courses, or other forms of self-improvement. Says Jennifer Friedlin, a Footsteps spokesperson, “We do everything from nuts-and-bolts stuff like helping people file their taxes to helping them find a life that feels full.”

Most of those who leave ultra-Orthodoxy struggle early on, especially financially. Finding a well-paying job without so much as a GED is extremely tricky; plus, some OTDers have heavy accents or aren’t accustomed to shaking hands with the opposite sex, which can make interviewing awkward. Renting an apartment without steady employment is close to impossible. For members who find themselves homeless or just hungry, the organization keeps its kitchen stocked with frozen burritos, coffee, yogurt, Sun Chips. And established members have temporarily opened their homes to new ones who need a place to stay while transitioning.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz
Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz

About 35 percent of Footsteps’ members have kids, and the vast majority are divorced; the organization’s speedily growing Family Justice Program helps them fight for custody or visitation. Footsteps trains lawyers from prestigious New York City firms to take on members’ cases; it also offers funds for parents who need to buy transcripts of their court cases or hire experts. Custody battles are often grueling: Ultra-Orthodox sects can wield serious financial muscle against apostates, and it’s common that the spouses who stay behind don’t pay a dime in legal fees-the community covers them entirely.

Footsteps is infamous among the hundreds of thousands of Haredim in the U.S., regarded by some as a dangerous influence, by others as an insidious evil. (When someone leaves the community, the ultra-Orthodox sometimes say the person “joined Footsteps.”) The organization has been accused of actively tempting people away from their comfortable Haredi lives. In fact, the group does no advertising or proselytizing in the community and doesn’t require members to renounce religion in order to use its services or participate in get-togethers. “We don’t care if people just come in for a scholarship,” says Friedlin. “We don’t care if they go back to Hasidism afterward. We don’t have an agenda. And contrary to the rumors, we don’t force men to cut off their peyes [curly sidelocks], nor do we feed anyone bacon as part of an initiation rite,” she says with a laugh. “We just want people to have choices.”

While a Haredi woman is menstruating, she and her husband must separate their twin beds and scrupulously avoid touching or even passing objects directly to each other. When her period is finished, she inserts special white cotton bedikah (inspection) cloths into her vagina twice daily for seven more days, to check for any signs of additional bleeding. Then she hands them off to a rabbi or dayan (judge), who examines the fabric and decides whether she and her husband can resume contact. (Actually, there’s an app for that: Through Tahor [Pure], women can send digital photos of their bedikah cloths to the rabbi-though as its user guide warns, “very complicated stains cannot always be answered.”) When she’s given the all clear, she goes to a mikvah (ritual bath) to fully sanitize herself.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Chavie Weisberger
Photo credit: Courtesy of Chavie Weisberger

Chavie Weisberger was taught these and other laws regarding sex before being married at age 18. “But in practice,” she says, “it all just felt so terrible.” In her sect, she was expected to shave her head the morning after her wedding, then continue to do so and wear wigs thereafter. “I was poor, so my wigs were super shabby and cheap-half human hair, half synthetic,” she says. “In the summer they’d get so disgusting. I remember the relief of coming home and pulling it off on a hot day, feeling the breeze from an open window on my sweaty scalp.” Wearing the wig, like other practices surrounding women’s dress and behavior, is intended to avoid inciting lust in men; similarly, Haredi men aren’t allowed to listen to women outside their family sing, as it’s considered a form of “nakedness.”

Weisberger’s husband studied the Talmud full-time and received a monthly stipend in exchange. But she had three children in short order, and to make ends meet, Weisberger taught at Hasidic girls’ schools and held down two other part-time jobs, all while doing the family’s cooking and the childcare. By 25, she knew she could no longer live by the community’s rigid rules; in 2008-when her kids were 5, 3, and 1-she filed for divorce. Four years later, she contacted Footsteps.

Weisberger is now the organization’s director of community engagement, helping orchestrate events that give members a network in which to root themselves. That means the annual cholent cook-off, a competition to see who makes the best version of the Jewish meat-and-bean stew. (This year about 50 attendees voted on seven variations-the winner took home a trophy and a $50 Trader Joe’s gift card.) Also: bowling nights, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (“It’s not that different from Jewish food,” Weisberger says. “There’s a big bird, mashed potatoes....”), the winter party, the Purim party (the last of which was Harry Potter–themed), the monthly Food and Schmooze, and even walking in the New York City gay pride parade with a Footsteps banner. During the annual July camping trip, members and their families craft succulent planters, take dips in the pool, and roast kosher marshmallows.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Chavie Weisburger
Photo credit: Courtesy of Chavie Weisburger

Despite the camaraderie, the social transition into a secular world can be confounding. Dina, a 33-year-old member raised Hasidic, found some parts breezier than others: “Dressing a certain way is effortless,” she says. “Where it gets complicated is talking about pop culture-if something didn’t happen after about 2014, I don’t know it. When I first left, I’d go out to a club and not move much. I’d explain that I’d never danced before and people would ask, ‘Where do you come from?’ And I’d be like, ‘Do you have the next eight hours free?’”

The bonds formed on Footsteps outings are nourishing-and necessary, for when the going gets tough, as it almost inevitably does. “I know so many ultra-Orthodox people who would love to leave,” says Dina, “but it cripples them just to think about it, because nearly everyone fails. When you try, the community pushes back.” As Weisberger started to transition, she, too, attracted a wealth of unwanted attention. “A man showed up at my front door unannounced, trying to persuade me to stay,” she says. “Some people wrote letters capitalizing on my father’s recent death, saying, ‘Think of how you’re affecting his soul in heaven.’ Then I got anonymous letters, like, ‘Your children are going to be on drugs and end up killing you in your sleep.’ It was a total bombardment.”

As difficult as the transition is, success stories are legion. Footsteps counts among its members Ivy League grads, Fulbright scholars (“We have members studying for PhDs in high-level math who didn’t even know algebra four years ago,” says Friedlin), doctors, filmmakers, lawyers, social workers, and all-around well-adjusted people who weren’t just running away from something but sprinting toward a personal goal or a truth. There’s even an elegant annual party, Footsteps Celebrates, designed to honor members’ milestones over the previous year. “The community tells people, ‘If you leave, you’re gonna fail,’” says Friedlin. “Our members are already motivated, but they’re extra determined to prove the community wrong.”

Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz
Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz

There’s an oft-used hashtag among the OTD: #ItGetsBesser (besser meaning “better” in Yiddish). It’s a way of telling those starting their journeys that the uphill climb is worth it. Says Schwartz, “When I see members graduating with honors and getting into med school-when I see them become less isolated and ashamed-it gets me a little teary-eyed. I’m so proud and impressed. Because I know what it took to get there. I know how hard it was to walk that path.”

Less than a year ago, Rachel was a married Hasidic woman, a seemingly devout suburban mother of four in a chestnut wig. Now, at 37, she’s got an unruly hipster haircut and incendiary energy. “Bubbly” doesn’t do her justice-she’s like a two-liter bottle of soda that’s been shaken in a paint mixer. Rachel was raised in a conservative Haredi family in Brooklyn, just a few subway stops-but a world apart-from record stores bumping hip-hop and restaurants serving bacon-wrapped scallops.

She was married at 17; as is customary, she and her husband touched for the very first time during their wedding ceremony, when they held hands under the chuppah. Rachel had her first child at 18 and was overwhelmed by postpartum depression. But fleeing didn’t seem to be an option. “I was always told, ‘If you leave, you’ll be homeless,’” she says. “Dying alone was a constant threat.”

She got her first library card at 18 and plowed through everything from Dickens to a Michael Jackson biography. Next, she signed up for a membership at a nearby video store and watched movies alone, late at night, to her husband’s shock and horror: American Beauty, Casablanca, Rosemary’s Baby. He was staunchly opposed to getting internet access at home, but after badgering him for years, Rachel prevailed. “He was right to resist,” she says with a laugh, “because once I got access to YouTube, I started looking up things like ‘What is evolution?’ All of a sudden there were answers to questions I’d never even thought to ask.”

Rachel filed for divorce in 2018 and got primary custody of her children, though she lost her relationships with all but a few family members and friends. Through an OTD friend, she heard about Footsteps and attended the camping trip and a few other social events. “They eased me into the secular world,” she says. Though she still suffered through the unsteadiness of the early transition period, she was a willing pupil. “Everything new felt amazing, even wearing a short-sleeved shirt,” she says. “But the craziest moment was the Shabbos when I went for lunch at a café. It was the first Saturday in my life when I wasn’t cooking a meal or not avoiding electricity. I was doing whatever I wanted, like it was just another day of the week. That blew my mind.”

On an absurdly rainy Friday night in April, Rachel heads up the stairs of a downtown Manhattan bar, where the walls shiver rhythmically along with the bass; at the door, a bouncer stamps a black-ink heart on the inside of her wrist. She tosses her coat in a corner and starts bopping her head. A waitress comes by, carrying a tray heaped with Jell-O shots in squat plastic cups, and Rachel pauses to peer at hers before slurping it down. “I’ve never had one of these,” she admits. “Everyone else had their teenage years to do that kind of stuff, but I’m only getting to live my young adulthood now.”

Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz
Photo credit: Courtesy of Malkie Schwartz

The music is Top 40 and retro stuff, unremarkable until a certain melody starts playing: It’s the 1994 dancehall classic “Rich Girl”-standard club fare, except that it samples probably the most famous Jewish pop culture tune of all time, “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof. Rachel giggles to herself as she shimmies, shards of green light bouncing off the disco ball and gliding across her dark hair as she two-steps. She sees a couple of buff men making out below an exit sign, and raises her eyebrows with a mixture of titillated joy and wonderment. A friend grabs her wrist, tugging her deeper onto the humid dance floor, where partygoers are starting to peel off their sweatshirts, faces damp and ecstatic. Someone asks whether Rachel’s leaving soon. She looks confused.

“Me? Oh no. It’s still so early,” she says, grinning, and disappears into the crowd.