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| Julia Haart (Us Magazine) |
In her 5 Towns Jewish Times column, Dating Forum, she castigates all those of us who ‘hit back’ at Julia Haart’ s scathing attack against her Charedi past. She did so while extolling the virtues of her newly adopted hedonistic and immoral lifestyle. Which is the polar opposite to the Torah based lifestyle Jews should aspire to.
A lot of us did that at the time. With the righteous indignation it deserved. It was hard not to be critical of her. Her negativity and mission to disabuse her own children of their religious upbringing (part of which she was at least in part responsible for in her past incarnation as a Charedi mother) was hardly anything we could approve of or accept. Most of us responded along the lines of showing the positive side of observance. But it also included some harsh words for Ms. Haart. To counter her extremely distorted narrative about being observant by presenting the positive religious lifestyle we all live is one thing. But as Mrs. Sebrow notes -attacking her may have been a mistake. A big one.
She offered her insights on the subject in the advice she gave to a young man who feared dating a ‘Trojan Horse’ – a woman who was outwardly religious but secretly rebellious to the extent that - like Ms. Haart - she would one day chuck it all and walk out. While admitting this was rare, he believed that the devastation caused by this to even one individual required an answer in how to avoid it. Although Mrs. Sebrow’s advice for that was excellent, I want to focus on the following which is germane to the subject at hand: How to deal with people that have gone OTD to the extremes of a Julia Haart:
An OTD (off-the-derech) person does not become that way overnight. Nobody goes to sleep happily frum and wakes up mad at his or her customs and religion. It is a buildup of many years of frustration and bitterness towards the community. An OTD person is usually someone who has left the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.
And from an earlier post Mrs. Sebrow excerpted back in July of last year:
I have been reading posts and op-eds in response to the new Netflix series, My Unorthodox Life. No, I am not going to be another professional Orthodox Jewish woman grabbing an opportunity to toot her own horn for self-promotion in the name of kiddush Hashem. I am all for kiddush Hashem, because that’s how I live my life, regardless of any painful obstacles and personal tragedies that I have endured. Here is my response to the series. Instead of blasting the formerly Orthodox Julia Haart and accusing her with motives to hurt Jews, how about demonstrating emotional support for a change of reaction? Don’t all these do-gooders realize that Julia Haart is reading the harsh criticisms against her? Don’t all these do-gooders realize that by attacking her, in essence, they are lending weight for her need to go so public about her private life? Do people not realize that something traumatic must have brought this on? Julia Haart was born a Jew. Julia Haart will always be a Jew. The flame of her pintele Yid is still flickering. With each attack against her, that flame is being doused. And that’s not kiddush Hashem. That’s chillul Hashem.
I think she has a point.. The unfortunate reality is that often those who go OTD are not treated well by the rest of us Sometimes even their own parents abandon them. The idea being that these once observant Jews are not victims of a secular upbringing by non observant parents. In those cases their non observance is out of ignorance. Outreach organizations realize this and try to engage with them non judgmentally. Doing it with kindness and acceptance instead of preaching at them. By simply being roles models for an Orthodox lifestyle via our own natural behavior. This presents a warm, positive image of observant Jews that in some cases motivates them to try it out. And in many of those cases they become fully observant Jews.
However, when someone goes OTD, they know already what being observant means. And they have decided to reject it. Such an individual is referred to as a Shana U’Piresh – someone that learned Halacha, knows what being observant is, and rejects it. No amount of role modeling in the world will convince them to return to the lifestyle they abandoned. So the tendency is to treat them like irredeemable outcasts. Julia Haart fits that description.
There is a certain logic to that, I suppose. Especially when such an individual aggressively seeks to undermine the observance of her own children as Ms. Haart does. It’s hard to see her the way Mrs. Sebrow does.
But as she also notes - we cannot know what precipitated Ms.Haart’s egregious rejection of her upbringing. We have no clue what her family circumstances were growing up – or what her marriage was like. All we know is what we saw on the outside. Which probably seemed perfectly normal. But was it? We have no clue what precepted her trek away from observance in such a radcial way. Her outwardly normal observant and happy lifestyle may - in reality - may not have been what it seemed to be. We simply do not know.
I’ve said this before. People go OTD for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s intellectual. They ‘conclude’ that Judaism is not true and the God doesn’t exist. But unlike Ms. Haart, that kind of OTD individual will be more tolerant of believers.
I firmly believe that in most cases there was a traumatic eperience that pushed them away. Or worse an ongoing dysfunctional family situation. They rebel because they experienced abuse (whether physical, mental, or sexual) from the significant religious people in their lives - such as a parent or teacher.
It has been my practice to treat people that have gone OTD with kindness and dignity. To not judge them for going OTD and instead treat them the same way I treat all of my observant friends. They may not return to observance – having been hurt by observant people thatb were close to them. But one thing is certain, treaitg them like dirt will chase them further away and probably even make them enemies.
The question is, how can we befriend the Julia Haarts of the world? People that so aggressively try to turn their own children away from observance?
Good question. Perhaps the answer is that we don’t need to befriend them. But we should not belittle them either. Treating them with respect and dignity while at the same time staying loyal to our principles is the way to go. You never know how treating even people like Ms Haart with dignity and kindness will affect them.
