Before suicide, woman penned book about her ordeals in ultra-Orthodox world | The Times of Israel

“At the time I didn’t know what the word romantic means, but I felt very strongly that I wanted to hear him pronounce my name on his lips. Sometimes I would walk behind him at home like a shadow and imagine him suddenly turning around and saying that wonderful word.”

Once, when she asked her husband to make love to her more than the twice a month permitted in the Takanot, he left their home to call a counselor for advice and only came back two hours later.

“He paused for a moment in the entrance to the living room, didn’t even look at me, and threw into the space of the room the sentence that would hound me for many years afterwards and until today: ‘The rabbi said one shouldn’t add days except what the rebbe [head of the sect] from Gur defined, which is twice a month, and we already did this twice this month! Therefore, the rabbi said, this month we should not do it again, and added and instructed, that if you accept my pronouncement, that is great! And if not — that I should sleep in the living room, and if that also doesn’t help and you continue to insist, then the rabbi ruled that I should sleep in the [synagogue]! Good night!’

“He finished like a father instructing his children to go straight to bed because it is late. He went to the bedroom and immediately fell asleep, and I spent the night in tears and wailing terribly.”

Before suicide, woman penned book about her ordeals in ultra-Orthodox world | The Times of Israel

UPDATED::Child Abuse Allegations Plague the Hasidic Community

This is another one of those stories that the overall narrative becomes lost in the minutiae.  Behind this narrative is also the issue of New York State's Statute of Limitations.

 UPDATE::  This article has sparked some interesting response.  Below are just a few,,,

Elite Chabad Yeshiva Says School Is Free of Abuse Despite Newsweek Expose

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s premier yeshiva is seeking to assure parents that no sexual or physical abuse is taking place within its walls following a detailed report on allegations of such abuse in the past.

“I categorically assure you that there is absolutely no abuse taking place in Oholei Torah that we know of,” Rabbi Sholom Rosenfeld, the school’s administrator, wrote parents in a March 8 letter on school letterhead, “neither sexual abuse, nor physical abuse, nor verbal abuse.”
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The school’s letter to the parents, dated March 8 and posted on community websites, neither addressed or denied any specific allegations or complaints, but described “many actions and precautions” that the school has instituted in recent years to prevent abuse. Among other things, the letter stated, Oholei Torah has, in recent years installed “windows on every classroom door” and has invited “numerous speakers” to address “child abuse and bullying.”

Focusing A Light on Abuse (Op-Ed)

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But no complaints were ever registered about the rabbi, nor were any criminal charges filed—in fact, a Freedom of Information Act request to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office turned up no evidence of his name ever appearing in its records. By now, the statute of limitations for most, if not all, of Reizes’s alleged crimes has expired, and the survivors are grown men, some with young boys in the Hasidic school system. Most are afraid to go public because they fear ruining the lives of their children. Reizes, now retired and in his 60s, lives across the street from the school where he used to teach.

While there is no evidence that child abuse is any more likely to occur in ultra-Orthodox schools than in public or secular institutions, stories like Reizes’s—an alleged abuser sheltered and victims unwilling to talk for fear of losing the only way of life they know—are common in the Hasidic school system. The many former students, advocates, sociologists, social workers and survivors interviewed by Newsweek, along with recordings, documents, public filings and personal emails that Newsweek obtained, place the blame on a confluence of factors: widespread sexual repression, a strong resistance to the secular world, and, most important, a power structure designed to keep people from speaking up about abuse.
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If children aren’t taught by their parents and teachers about appropriate sexual behavior, they have no way to sense when touching turns into something that is wrong. “You don’t even know what your body is,” says Lynn Davidman, a professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Kansas who grew up in a religious Jewish family. “And you are not supposed to touch or know, and then all of a sudden you are introduced to forbidden knowledge in a most abusive way.” The abused have no way to make sense of what’s going on, to stop it or to tell anybody about it.
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In New York, survivors of most cases of child molestation have five years after they turn 18 to get the district attorney to prosecute. (In cases of sexual misconduct, legal proceedings must begin within two years after the offense was committed, regardless of the child’s age at the time of the alleged crime.) Many child abuse experts say that window is not nearly big enough for young men just starting to understand what happened to them. It’s no surprise that most of the abuse Newsweek uncovered happened long ago—no 10-year-old has the wherewithal to talk to the press about his abusive teacher. It takes a 25-year-old who has finally received a proper education to understand what was done to him 15 years ago.

Child Abuse Allegations Plague the Hasidic Community

See also: Investigating Abuse Allegations in the Chabad School System

UPDATED::The Shame of Borough Park

UPDATE::  If there is one thing I have learned over the course of 5+ yrs of blogging, I never get the full story.  There are always at least 2 facets to every story and with this update or addendum that tid-bit holds true.

Score For Chasidic Sex Abuse Whistleblower In Forward Suit  

The defamation suit concerns a 2013 article written by Paul Berger, “Sam Kellner’s Tangled Hasidic Tale of Child Sex Abuse, Extortion and Faith,” and a tweet, mistakenly referring to Kellner as a convicted extortionist.

The lawsuit alleges that Berger used an illegally obtained recording that had been and doctored by the Lebovits family to falsely claim that Kellner suggested to the family of a child molester that they could “buy off prosecutors” with Yankee tickets and other gifts.

It also claims that Berger falsely accused Kellner of “conspiring to commit extortion.” However, Kellner’s lawyer argues that when one listens to the entire recording, it is clear that claim is not true.

Lastly, it points to the tweet, which not only mistakenly refers to Kellner as a convicted extortionist but also went uncorrected for six days after the paper was alerted to the error.

The Forward sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the article was purely opinion, and thus protected speech. It also argued that the mistaken language of the tweet was inadvertent and not intended to defame Kellner.

James rejected the claim that the article was an opinion piece, but wrote that based on the evidence presented so far, the piece appears to be based on undisclosed and/or misrepresented facts. As for the tweet, James ruled that its “required intent cannot be determined on these motion papers.”

The judge also found that in its motion to dismiss, the Forward failed to prove that Kellner is a public figure rather than a private person, writing that he “was drawn into the public forum against his will in order to obtain redress for his son, and then to defend himself.” This is a key distinction because as a private figure, Kellner would have to show only that The Forward acted negligently rather than with actual malice. However, the judge also noted that this determination could change after the discovery period, during which witnesses are deposed, and more facts come into evidence.

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This is a long read but worth every minute. Kellner risked everything to bring out the truth and his story highlights very well that religious communities are not always moral when they’re isolated from the rest of society.

Not only that but it demonstrates just how far some people will go to avoid facing justice and why separation of religion from government is so important.

The committee granted him permission, as long he had the approval of a rabbi. The rabbi would have to make an exception to the Talmudic prohibition against mesirah, the act of turning over another Jew to civil authorities. According to some interpretations of Talmudic law, a Jew who informs on another Jew has committed a capital crime. He is a “wicked man,” who has “blasphemed and rebelled against the law of Moses,” the twelfth-century Torah scholar Maimonides wrote. The law was meant to protect the community from anti-Semitic governments. Kellner said, “The way history tells it is that if a Jew was arrested he was thrown in jail and never heard of again.”
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Kellner sought counsel from Rabbi Chaim Flohr, the leader of an institute where rabbinic scholars study how the teachings of the Torah translate to contemporary dilemmas. After listening to Kellner’s story, Flohr called the modesty councils in Borough Park and Williamsburg (where there are sixty thousand Hasidim) to see if other children had reported being molested by Lebovits. Flohr wrote in an affidavit that “numerous complaints and allegations of a similar nature had been made against Baruch Lebovits dating back over a long period of time.” Flohr told Kellner that he was justified in going to the police, because Lebovits could be considered a rodef, or pursuer, someone who is endangering the lives of other Jews. In a letter, Flohr wrote, “Behold I make known in the public arena: to praise an honest man, namely Mr. Shloma Aron Kellner, may his light shine, that how he acted in regards to the government was based on a query before a rabbinic court and was done according to our Holy Torah. . . . It is forbidden to trouble him or humiliate him.”

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Aron had tried to leave the Hasidic community, but he struggled to assimilate into the secular world. Many of the yeshivas in Brooklyn teach in Yiddish and provide less than two hours of secular education a day. Aron had a heavy Yiddish accent, a rudimentary grasp of written English, and no diploma. In a video filmed by a friend, Aron complained about his limited education and social skills. He said that he didn’t know how to interact with women—he had been forbidden to mingle with them or look them in the eye—and no one had taught him “what your body is about.” He had struggled to process what was happening when Lebovits, a pious man, put his mouth on Aron’s penis. “My head, like, exploded,” he said. “Call it an epiphany, I guess.”

The Shame of Borough Park

UPDATED::I left Hasidism to become a woman | New York Post

UPDATED to add:: Leaving My Ultra-Orthodox Home and Finding My Trans Self: Part One and Leaving My Ultra-Orthodox Home and Finding My Trans Self: Part Two by Abby Stein.

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A man descended from a Hasidic “dynasty” is transitioning into a woman — enraging members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community she left behind.

Srully Stein — who now goes by Abby — recently came out as a woman and said she’s finally living as her true self — something she said was impossible to do growing up in her restrictive household in Brooklyn.

“In the community that I was raised in, Trans did not exist, neither was it ever discussed,” the 24-year-old writes in her blog.

“I was therefore convinced that I have to be crazy, and that I have to get this ‘stupidity’ of feeling like a girl, out of my head.”
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 “The road is long, but with the support of some amazing friends and professionals, for the first time in my life I feel like I am getting to be my real self,” she wrote in a recent post, which received more than 20,000 hits in just a couple days.

Stein’s roots trace back to Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer, also referred to as Baal Shem Tov, considered the founder of Hasidic Judaism.

Her grandfather, Mordechai, was born in Fălticeni, Romania, and her father was born in Israel.

Her ancestors are part of several Hasidic sects — and her great-grandmother was a member of the Twersky family, a “very famous” old dynasty from the Ukraine, she said.

I left Hasidism to become a woman | New York Post

Jewish Hasidic sect in Stamford Hill 'bans' women from driving - Home News - UK - The Independent

 Wondering what ever happened to the Eishet Chayil of Proverbs 31:

"Telling women they can’t drive isn’t modest, it’s alienating," she added. "I don’t see any difference between this and the ban on driving in Saudi Arabia. It fetishes women by saying 'we can’t see women and we can’t look at women' and I think that is completely against Jewish values and the Bible’s values.

The leaders of an Orthodox Jewish sect in north London have reportedly declared that women should not be allowed to drive in a letter sent out to the community.

Rabbis from the Belz Hasidic sect in Stamford Hill have said women driving cars contravenes “the traditional rules of modesty in our camp” and the conventions of hasidic institutions, according to a report by the Jewish Chronicle.

The letter, which was signed by Belz educational leaders and endorsed by rabbis, also said women could be banned from their schools if their mothers drove them from August onwards.

It cited increasing numbers of “mothers of pupils who have started to drive” which it said had led to “great resentment among parents of pupils of our institutions”.

Stamford Hill's residents are predominately Hasidic Jewish and only New York is believed to have a larger community of Hasidic Jews outside of Israel.

Dina Brawer, UK Ambassador of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said the instructions within the letter had no scriptural foundation and could prove debilitating for Jewish women.

Jewish Hasidic sect in Stamford Hill 'bans' women from driving - Home News - UK - The Independent

What Happens When Hasidic Jews Go Secular -- Science of Us

The first time Lynn Davidman bit into a cheeseburger, she was worried for her life. “I was afraid some punishment by God might be imminent,” she recalls. She wasn’t sure what form his retribution for eating a non-kosher burger would take; she probably wouldn’t be hit by lighting in a restaurant, she figured, but perhaps she would be struck to the ground.

A junior at Ramaz, a modern Orthodox Jewish day school in New York, Davidman had begun questioning the strict laws she’d been raised with years earlier. Davidman, now a (secular) professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, has spent much of her career studying communities like the one she grew up in. In her first book, Tradition in a Rootless World, she profiled American Jewish women who grew up irreligious and chose Orthodoxy as adults. For her latest book, Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews, Davidman got to know a very different group of people: 40 men and women born into ultra-Orthodox Hasidic communities who had, against all odds, broken away and joined the secular world.

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How unusual it is for people to leave these communities?
Very. It takes an enormous amount of guts, savvy, and bravery. The general idea in the community is to keep people as far away from the secular world as possible — it’s seen as polluting. They are taught that the outside world is dangerous, that they have to stick together because God chose them, and if they don’t follow God’s commandments, they will be punished terribly. They grow up with a tremendous fear.

What Happens When Hasidic Jews Go Secular -- Science of Us

The Conflict Between the Hasidic and Immigrant Communities in East Ramapo -- New York Magazine

One morning in June 2005, a team of real-estate agents left Manhattan and drove an hour north to the western part of Rockland County to ­repossess a house. The home, in a village called New Square, had long since fallen into delinquency, and the bank had sold the property. The new owners, investors, had offered a cash settle­ment to the occupants as an enticement to leave before the formal eviction, but that offer had been refused. The agents had been told that New Square was a Hasidic village, but they had not given that fact much thought. Arriving, accompanied by the police, one of the agents noticed that the village had a gate and that the gate was attended.

In retrospect, that gate seems like a portal. Inside, young men and boys seemed to be everywhere, dressed alike. One of the agents was a woman in business clothes, her hair uncovered, and as the group passed through the village, her colleagues noticed a Hasidic woman covering a young boy’s eyes. At the house, the owner answered the door and the eviction began. The agents took a look at the place—a yellow house divided into four units, a small structure in the yard, no great prize.

The phrase “all hell broke loose” conjures an ancient kind of chaos. Perhaps it applies. Dozens of Hasidim arrived, forming a crowd, some just curious but some very upset. Villagers took photos of the police, of the agents, of the license plates on the agents’ cars, of the possessions being piled on the lawn. One Hasid stuck a microphone in the lead agent’s face and yelled questions at him, as if he were a corrupt politician. A group of workmen had been hired to help with the physical eviction; they had rocks thrown at them.

The Conflict Between the Hasidic and Immigrant Communities in East Ramapo -- New York Magazine