Here we have yet another story of a young Frum Jew, a Satmar Chasid, who became disaffected with his heritage. The story always seem to be the same. It almost always involves someone who was overly sheltered and taught a distorted view about the secular world around them. He went from being completely immersed in his culture to leaving that world and becoming an atheist. How does that happen? And why? How many Jews are there who leave Judaism because of what Sam experienced in his world? I have no clue. But if this article is any indication, it seems like there are many and they have a common denominator.
There was a controversial book about this phenomenon written by Hella Winston called: Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels. I'm not judging the veracity of that book. The point is that Sam was exposed to it and it opened his eyes to an entire community of people just like himself. People with his background; his experiences.
I realize that the picture he paints may not be complete. There are very likely details about his life that are different than the rest of his community’s. There may have been abuse or family dysfunction. Obviously most Satmar Chasidim don’t drop out to become atheists. There are over 120,000 members. They are probably the largest Chasidic group in all of Jewry.
But there does seem to be a big percentage coming out of that one sector… which is an overly sheltered one that is a life filled with distortions about the world outside their own.
How can they so distort what the secular world is all about?
They do not see it as distortion. I think that most of what they teach about it, they actually believe. It is kind of their Mesorah about Goyim as ‘out to get the Jews’ and that is based on a real history of European anti-Semitism… an anti-Semitism that was experienced by their parents and grandparents who lived in those communities before and during the holocaust. Add to that the very real ills that are a part of western culture and combined with a history of insularity which prevents them from experiencing much of the outside world socially on their own… and it’s pretty easy to see the reasons for those distortions.
How sheltered are they? What kind of distortions do they teach? If this article’s description is accurate it is frightening. Here are some very sad excerpts:
Corporal punishment at school was expected and tolerated by the community. Students were commonly hit with belts for violations as minute as losing one's place in the text while it was being read aloud. Sam recalls brutal treatment from his teachers, whom he grew to fear and despise. He still bears the scar from a pen jabbed into his hand as punishment for being late to class when he was four years old.
Sam says that while he remained compliant on the outside, he began at an early age to question the life that was proscribed for him. He wondered why he was forbidden to enjoy such simple pleasures as playing sports with friends or shopping in certain stores. He was confused when his best friend was expelled from school for riding a bicycle, when he knew that such behavior was permissible among more lenient Hasidic groups.
Throughout his life, Sam was taught that non-Jews were to be hated and feared, and that one who associated with them risked physical harm. Any non-Jew was by definition an anti-Semite.
How accurately does this reflect the world of Satmar? I don’t know. But the descriptions do not seem that far fetched based on my own admittedly limited knowledge of that community. Overly strict parenting and over sheltering prevents most of them from finding out the truth. If…like Sam they do in some way find out what’s out there… is should be no surprise that some have a reaction like his. The surprise is that there aren’t a lot more.
